Thicker Than Water
by LoyaulteMeLie
Summary: Malcolm Reed is done with Section 31 - but Section 31 is not done with him. AU.
1. Chapter 1

**Star Trek and all its intellectual property belongs to Paramount. No infringement intended, no profit made.**

**Beta'd by VesperRegina, to whom I am, as always, deeply indebted.**

**Author's Note: Warning. Whilst not graphic, this story visits very dark issues including slavery and child abuse. If these upset you, please do not read it.**

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The chirp of the comm unit interrupted the peaceful flow of the music playing in the background.

Malcolm had been drowsing on his bunk, his book temporarily laid aside. This piece, _In Un'altra Vita,_ always caught him into dreams. Momentarily swept up into the passion of the melody, his long, slender fingers moved on the blanket, recreating those of the extraordinarily skilled pianist, so long dead but his works immortal.

His school in England had prided itself on the breadth of its curriculum; all pupils were expected to achieve some degree of competence on a musical instrument. Few, however, had spent the hours practising on the piano the way he had done, losing himself in the music and in the ceaseless pursuit of perfection. His music master had wanted him to go on to study it, had even spoken of his being good enough to take it up as a career. Only impassioned pleading had prevented the well-intentioned teacher from mentioning this at Parents' Evening, and only with reluctance had he agreed not to. Pity alone knew what Reed Senior would have come out with at the suggestion that his weakling son and heir pursue _music _for a living; Malcolm could still remember the almost nauseous wave of relief when the interview was over and the suggestion remained unmade.

He'd known even then that his real inclinations lay towards the technology of weaponry. Reed men were Navy men, but the Royal Navy could find a use for a weapons and explosives specialist. Maybe if he excelled there, his father would eventually stop despising him for his small size and poor health. Because he _could _excel – deep in that undersized frame there was a passion for excellence as great as that of any of the Reed ancestors whose pictures adorned the walls of the dining room. Let him just get his chance, and he'd do whatever it took to achieve success. One day, his picture too would be up on that wall. He'd been determined on it, even more for his own sake than for his father's.

If things had been different, though...

His mind was so far away that for a second his brain refused to identify the sound summoning him back to the present. Then he sat up immediately. Nobody would disturb him in his cabin, in his off-duty hours, unless it was urgent.

He pressed the 'respond' button on the comm unit on the wall. "Reed."

"Sir, I have a communication for you from Starfleet HQ on a closed channel." Hoshi's beta-shift replacement spoke almost apologetically. "I told him you were off duty, but he said it was urgent."

Malcolm paused for a moment, his mouth tightening. "Record the entire transmission please, Ensign. Security code Epsilon, four, four, zero, four, one, Delta, four, Theta. As soon as it's finished, route an encoded copy to Captain Archer and explain that I request a meeting with him to discuss the contents."

"Yes, sir. Putting the connection through now."

So much for 'might-have-beens'.

He rolled lightly off the bed and strode over to his desk, where he sat down and entered the computer codes for his personal access. As he'd expected, the _Enterprise_ logo on the monitor was replaced almost immediately by the face of pretty well the last person he wanted to see – his old boss from the Section.

Harris.

For all Malcolm's determination to break free from the ties that held him to his old life, sentimentality was not one of the levers that had been available when the exigencies of the discovery of baby Elizabeth's existence had required he contact the Section to request information. Harris had told him bluntly that the price for the goods had been his 'coming back in the game', and although he'd said nothing in reply to that, his consent was implicit when he didn't turn and walk away. The information he'd gleaned thereby (and at a second subsequent meeting) had been sparse enough, but it had been sufficient to allow the ship to track down the miscreant Paxton and prevent him and his xenophobic organisation from destroying Starfleet HQ with the Verteron Array. Thus, incidentally, saving goods and lives from the Section as well, but he'd always harboured doubts as to whether his indebtedness would be regarded as cancelled by that small matter.

Evidently, it hadn't been.

"Sir," he said stiffly. The courtesy due to a senior officer was in the wording; the tone, one he would never have dreamed of using to Captain Archer, said 'What do _you _want?'.

Harris's smile was a mere movement of the lips. It got nowhere near his eyes. "I believe we made an agreement on the occasion you requested information about Susan Khouri, Lieutenant."

_Bastard. _"Just so you're aware, sir, this conversation is being recorded and will be passed immediately and in its entirety to Captain Archer."

The smile widened, though it grew no warmer. "You want your captain made privy to _all _your little exploits, Malcolm?"

He neither blinked nor swallowed, though he wanted to do both; the man watching him would know them for symptoms of unease. "I was obeying the orders of my superior officers, sir. I'm sure you're aware of Admiral Nelson's advice."

"'Firstly you must always implicitly obey orders, without attempting to form any opinion of your own regarding their propriety.' Still a Royal Navy man at heart, eh, Lieutenant?"

"It certainly served the Section's purposes rather well at the time, sir."

"It still might." The older man leaned forward. "I'm contacting you, Malcolm, because someone in whom you might just possibly be interested has – disappeared. From a location that's not too far distant from _Enterprise_'s present position. Maybe this photograph may give you a clue."

For a split second, Malcolm thought his old handler had completely lost his mind. You never, _never _transmitted photographs of a Section operative through any electronic means as open as a two-way communication channel, closed or not.

The picture that flashed up on screen, however, was not of any of his team, nor indeed of anyone known to him in the old days. Even so, he sat back suddenly in his chair, the breath catching in his throat.

The likeness was stunning.

"Her name is Keri Grenham, daughter of the famous physicist Joelle Grenham and her husband Marcellus," Harris continued smoothly. "I'll be sending you the file on her in case you want to take a look at it."

"Disappeared – how?" asked Malcolm almost without volition, staring at the screen. Long blonde hair, laughing, reckless grey-blue eyes, and a mouth whose sweet bow almost disguised its owner's air of self-possession.

_Pard..._

For a moment he thought it was a childhood photograph. The girl on the screen was perhaps seven or eight. But after a moment small differences made themselves known: Pard's eyes had been a more perfect blue, her cheekbones less pronounced. Then he thought, maybe a daughter – but Pard had never got the chance to be a mother, had died in his arms, shot three times through the chest on his last mission for the Section. He'd even attended the funeral, standing at a very discreet distance from the interment and pretending to be contemplating the headstone of some perfect stranger who hadn't died too young at the ripe old age of twenty-nine. He hadn't left flowers; Pard would have scorned the gesture. Instead he'd gone out and got lashed out of his brains, and woken up the next morning in bed with a total stranger who was almost equally hung-over and possibly even more embarrassed, which was saying something.

"I'm sure you'll want to talk things over with Captain Archer before we go any further," said Harris, without answering the question. "The file will be with you shortly. If you're interested – you know where I am."

The screen went blank as the transmission ended, and the _Enterprise_ logo blinked back on to it.

* * *

It was late, for disturbing the captain unnecessarily; and besides, he was confident that the comm officer – he was too agitated for the moment to think of the name – would have passed on the recording and his message immediately. If Captain Archer wanted to discuss it, doubtless he would make that decision without prompting.

It seemed that Captain Archer did.

Apprehension made a hollow of Malcolm's stomach as he answered the comm for a second time. "Reed here, sir."

"I've just received a rather cryptic message from the Bridge," his commanding officer observed, his voice carefully neutral. "Not to mention a recording locked with a security code. I believe this is something to do with you."

"Yes, sir." What else could he say?

The ensuing silence was loud with the clattering of painstakingly rebuilt bridges toppling from their supports and falling into the chasm below. The tactical officer watched the planks tumble end over end into the darkness.

"I guess I won't get too much sleep till I find out what all this is about," said the captain eventually. "I'll meet you in the Ready Room in ten minutes."

The link closed.

With an almost inaudible sigh Malcolm saw the arrival of an encrypted message. It was unlocked by his Section code number.

Even now, it flew from his fingers so easily!

He copied the contents onto a data chip and deleted the original message, using a programme he'd designed himself. The file couldn't be completely obliterated – the Starfleet software wouldn't allow it – but any attempt to access it would alert him immediately.

The urge to open the copied file and study its contents was almost overwhelming. Even a glance...

But that wasn't in the bargain – the bargain he'd made with himself, the day he was given a second chance by the ship's captain whose trust in him he'd destroyed.

He slipped the chip into the pocket of his trousers and walked out into the corridor, noticing even as he did so that his gait had changed. Instead of the confident stride of an officer, he had instinctively begun to move more quietly, slipping along the corridor like a shadow.

The shadow of the past he could not outrun.

However hard he tried.

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	2. Chapter 2

For all that Malcolm's reasoning mind knew that the ship's life-support system was functioning just as efficiently as it ordinarily did, he received the immediate impression as he stepped into the Ready Room that the temperature inside it was quite a few degrees colder than that on the Bridge.

His first cautiously assessing glance at his captain, who was waiting seated at his desk, was a little reassuring. Although Archer had no welcoming smile for him, he wore the look of one suspending judgement. He could hardly be expected to be pleased by this development, but he was prepared to give his officer a fair hearing.

"Sir." Malcolm stood at 'parade rest' in front of the desk, awaiting orders.

There was a pause. He was aware of the older man's careful scrutiny.

"Were you expecting any contact from Earth, Lieutenant?" asked Archer at last.

"No, sir." He could answer that promptly and honestly. It had been a bolt from the blue for him too.

As the ship's commanding officer, the captain had access to all security codes and would have found the one which his tactical officer would use for a secured communication. He'd evidently opened the file on this computer and played through it a second time; the photograph was still displayed on the screen, frozen where the playback had been halted. Now he looked at it thoughtfully. "Do you know this girl?"

"N-no, sir." The slight stumble over the denial was eloquent. One of the captain's eyebrows went up, unnervingly like T'Pol's did sometimes, so Malcolm went on in a soft, rapid voice, "I don't know her, but there's a ... a resemblance to someone I used to work with. She may be a close relation. I don't know. There must be some reason why Harris would think I'd be interested." He withdrew the data chip from his pocket and laid it on the desk. "The file he mentioned, it's on there. I haven't opened it."

"Why not?"

The lieutenant drew his gaze from the bulkhead opposite and met his CO's searching eyes. "I told you, sir, as far as I'm concerned I no longer belong to the Section. I owe them for helping us out with the Terra Prime business, but I won't take a single step without your knowledge and approval. If I'd opened that file first you could reasonably suspect I might have tampered with whatever was on it. As it is, Commander T'Pol will be able to verify that it hasn't been opened at all."

The scrutiny endured for a while longer. Then, "I guess that won't be necessary."

There was a sense of tension easing slightly as the captain picked up the chip and inserted it into the slot in the computer. "I imagine you'll want to see this with me."

There had been no need to encrypt the copied file; a data chip was a simple matter to dispose of. The information spooled on the screen.

Malcolm had extensive experience of picking out the vital pieces of information from a document extremely quickly. He skipped through the extraneous text in seconds, but one sentence sprang out at him, hitting him so hard he felt as though he'd been physically punched in the gut.

'Adopted in 2148 from classified Human parent on Proxima Colony.'

"Malcolm?" The captain's voice, now quick with concern, brought him partially back from wherever he'd gone as the Ready Room unfocussed around him. "Are you okay?"

"Sir," he said muzzily. "Per – permission to sit down for a minute."

"Granted. Sit down before you fall down." He hadn't seen the other man move, but suddenly Archer's hands were on his upper arms, partly supporting him and partly pushing him towards one of the chairs against the wall. After a moment, "Here. You look like you could use some of this."

He took the cup, unresisting, and tilted it to his mouth without thought. The bourbon hit the back of his throat so that he drew in air with a gasp.

It was completely against regulations to drink on duty. It took him a moment to realise he actually wasn't _on _duty, even if he felt as though he was, having been summoned into the captain's presence to explain himself. Anyway, he didn't give a damn. He tossed back the rest of it as though it was water.

_Enterprise _came back to him, but it was now obscured behind a wall of fear. He stared up at his commanding officer, wondering how much he could – how much he _dared _– say to him.

"Take your time." Archer set a steadying hand on his shoulder. "Breathe slowly."

He wanted to breathe slowly, but he couldn't remember how to. His heart was drubbing in his chest, his mind a whirl. A few moments later he found himself being pressed gently but inexorably forward, bringing his head down by his knees. Bloody hell, had he nearly _fainted?_

"I – I'm all right now, sir," he said awkwardly, as the world steadied. To his embarrassment, he discovered that the captain was now squatting beside him, looking intensely concerned. "I'm fine. Really."

"I think I've heard that from you a few too often, Malcolm." The smile was genuine and gentle. "Do you need me to call Phlox?"

"No! No, sir, really. I just ... I ..." He scrubbed a hand across his face. He'd run out of words. Warily he sat up; the world dipped a little, but no longer spun before his indignant gaze.

The older man stood up, but rested a hand on his shoulder again and kept it there – a small intimacy from which he would ordinarily have shrunk, but now it felt like a sea-anchor to a ship adrift in a southerly gale. "I think there's something here you need to talk about, if you feel you can. Do you need a little time by yourself first?"

Malcolm paused before replying. The instinctive urge to confide in his captain warred against the old habits of stealth, of secrecy. He knew himself too well: given enough time, he'd persuade himself that _least said, soonest mended_, and find all sorts of plausible reasons for not giving Captain Archer the honesty he deserved. Before that could happen, he blurted out, "It was ... I was part of a team. We went on missions – things that couldn't be sorted out by ... orthodox means." He caught the captain's steady gaze on him, with a hint of distaste in it, and he coloured, but went on with an effort. "It wasn't the sort of life that ... well, you can't have 'ordinary' relationships, really. You try, but it doesn't work out." A soft, bitter laugh escaped him. He'd found _that_ out the hard way. "There was this girl, this woman, in my team ... I never knew her real name, you don't tell people things like that, but she and I ... well, it sort of happened. It wasn't a love affair or anything, we ... we just accepted each other." To keep yourself anywhere near sane in that line of work, you need _some_ kind of emotional connection, even if it's with someone who's as flawed as you are. He and Pard certainly hadn't loved one another, sometimes they hadn't even liked each other very much, but they filled a need in each other's lives. Explaining a relationship that had been at once so complex and so brutally simple was beyond him, however; like so much else in the world he'd inhabited, you had to be there to understand.

He broke off, studying his linked fingers. This degree of honesty, of openness, was terrifying to him. "She died on the last mission before I left to join _Enterprise. _I never even got to tell her I was leaving."

The captain's gaze travelled to the monitor, and Malcolm's followed it.

"There was one year she didn't come with us," he said tightly, forcing the words out. "We were told she had another job to do for a while, a good few months. It was 2148, and I got one coded message from her. She didn't say where she was, but I wanted to know, just in case, and there are ... ways, if you have the right contacts. She was on Proxima."

There was a silence. He realised he'd started pushing his fingers distractedly through his hair, making it a mess. For some reason, however, his customary care for his appearance seemed to have deserted him.

"And ... the father?" Archer asked the inevitable question at last, with aching care.

"I didn't know. I don't know. _Fucking hell_." The words were muffled, because now his hands were pressed to his face, and he didn't know till he heard the words that he'd cursed in front of the captain. "Maybe."

Another, longer silence. He listened to his own breathing.

The captain broke the silence again, gently. "How can we help you, Malcolm?"

"You can't." The hands dropped into his lap, in an eloquent gesture of defeat. "If she was taken where I think she was, a Starfleet ship turning up anywhere near it would close down the whole place so fast you'd think there wasn't a living soul on it."

Archer moved back to the desk and read further, summarising the contents. "Her mom and dad were on a routine transport to a conference on Denobula and the ship was attacked by pirates. Marcellus Grenham was badly injured, a couple of the other passengers were killed, anything of value was taken..." he trailed off.

Malcolm sat mute as the knowledge twisted in his soul like a white-hot knife. He hadn't needed to be told. _Anything of value._

"Joelle Grenham is currently at work on a top secret project for Starfleet R&D," the captain continued. "She was among the injured, but fortunately not seriously. Obviously," he glanced at his tactical officer, "having her daughter kidnapped is going to affect her participation in this project, whatever it was. The top brass won't like that."

"She works in EM field research." Some of the material he'd read up on as background to his own experiments had been hers.

The irony was enough to kill him, if he let it.

Under the shock and pain and sudden raw, visceral terror, his mind must have been working furiously. His next actions were now laid out in front of him with an inevitability that admitted of no possible argument.

"Sir, I have to go."

The captain looked across at him.

"You said that if a Starfleet ship came anywhere near it, they'd all disappear."

"I have to go _alone._"

There was a pause.

"You'd be risking your life for something that might not..." Archer was obviously searching for a tactful way of putting it, "might not be what you think."

He pointed at the screen. "She's still missing."

"They'll send somebody to look for her."

"And by the time 'somebody' arrives, she'll be long gone."

The pain was gone. The shock was gone. The terror had gone deep, and dark, and icy cold. There was nothing left but the hunting.

_Jaguar was loose._

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	3. Chapter 3

_Enterprise _was now stationary in an asteroid field light years from pretty well anywhere important, much to the bemusement of the bridge officers, who had no idea why the captain had suddenly and unequivocally ordered them here.

There had been several confidential, urgent communications from Starfleet HQ for the captain that both verified the fact of the kidnapping and gave him _carte blanche _to render 'any assistance that might be required' in the child's rescue. The phrasing was so oblique that it was clear that a few people back on Earth were even more in the dark about what was going to happen than he was. They, however, seemed to be okay with that. He wasn't.

He'd excused Malcolm from standard duties since that extraordinary conversation. It was remarkable that the usually ultra-diligent officer had accepted the order without argument, sinking quietly and stealthily out of view in a manner that put his commanding officer forcibly in mind of an alligator who'd marked his prey. Since then he'd occasionally been seen battering hell out of the punch-bag in the gymnasium, but mostly had been locked in his room, presumably making plans. Hoshi had reported on the quiet that he'd had one conversation with HQ (presumably getting more background from Harris – as per Malcolm's standing order the conversation had, once again, been recorded and a copy passed on, though Jon hadn't studied it yet) and sent one encrypted data burst to a distant unknown freighter, but that was all.

Now it was time for him to find out exactly what the plan was.

At least, that was the idea.

Malcolm evidently had other ideas.

The tactical officer stood in front of him like a statue, looking through him like he wasn't even there, and refused to answer.

From an officer who regarded insubordination as the Eighth Deadly Sin, this was simply outside the known universe. The captain stared at him, but might as well have been staring at a block of granite.

"So all you're going to tell me is that you need to borrow one of our shuttlepods?" he said at last. "And we go someplace for a few days and then come back and hang around for a couple more, and if you're not back by then we just ... give you up for dead and _leave?"_

"If I'm not back within seven days, sir, I will be either dead or long past rescue," Malcolm said stiffly. "In either of which cases, there will be no point in the ship remaining here, and in fact doing so will put her at risk."

"So the idea is that you just go in alone?... and that if things go wrong, we have no idea where you are or what's happened to you?"

"Exactly, sir."

"That's not exactly a scenario I regard as acceptable, Lieutenant."

"That's the option that offers least risk to the ship, sir."

He was used by now to Malcolm's habit of retreating into ultra-formality when he was uncomfortable – hell, it had taken long enough to coax the man out of acting ultra-formal _all the time _– but this was taking things to a whole new level. He was speaking like he didn't give a damn whether anyone liked what he had to say; with an undertone that might even have been insolence if it hadn't been so utterly confident.

"Well. At least give me some idea of exactly what you'll be up against when you go – wherever you're going."

There was a long pause.

"There's a ... settlement on a planet not far from here," the lieutenant said at last, obviously choosing his words with extreme care. "I can make it in about two and a half days by shuttlepod. It's a trading post – the sort that prefers to keep itself as out of view as possible. Attracts all kind of shady characters."

The captain crossed his arms and leaned back across the desk. "And you happen to know of this place because...?"

"I've been there." The reply fell flatly. "We were sent on a mission. There are ... people there who'd remember me."

"Remember you in a good way or a bad way?"

A smile that was as humourless as a grimace sat briefly on Malcolm's mouth. "Let's just say they won't mess me around. If they don't kill me on sight, they'll help me. For a price."

"I won't countenance you going alone," said Jon. "You need back-up if you're going into a place like that."

"Sir, with respect –" though there was precious little of it in his tone – "I work _best _alone."

"You're a member of my crew, Lieutenant. Tell me what you'd say if I suggested sending any other crewman into this level of danger without any form of support."

Malcolm looked down. His already tight mouth compressed still further. "Permission to speak freely, sir," he said after a moment.

"Granted."

There was another pause. The lieutenant glanced out of the viewing port as though searching for inspiration out there.

"Sir," he said earnestly at last, "I'm grateful – more grateful than I can say – that you're giving me this chance. But the bottom line is, that's _all _it is. A bloody long shot at best. I have a reason to go and it's my neck I'm risking, now you've been kind enough to release me. And I'm used to working in that kind of environment, but nobody else on the ship has anything like my experience. If Major Hayes was still with us –" he grimaced again – "maybe I'd think differently. But even he wouldn't have had the same experience in working completely undercover." He took a deep breath, and went on quietly, "That's not conceit on my part, Captain. It's not a part of my career I look back on with any particular pride. But the fact remains that I did it, on numerous occasions, and lived to tell the tale."

"I understand that. But the fact remains that you were part of a _team. _And whether or not you appreciate that fact, you're part of a team now – _my _team. An integral part of it. And I don't want to lose you. When I picked the officers for my ship, I went for the very best I could find. And particularly for the Tactical Officer I thought was the most capable of keeping the rest of us safe."

At that, Malcolm's eyes dropped. When they rose again, for an instant the captain thought there was a glint of tears in them. "Sir, you and the crew are – are more than my team; you're the family I never had. But this–" his hand moved towards the breast pocket of his uniform – "this could be – "

"That's exactly why I want you to have the best chance possible of succeeding," said Jon, very gently. "Because of that possibility that _she _could be part of our family too. And even if she isn't, I can see how much this matters to you, and because of that it matters to me."

Just for a moment he thought the other man wavered. Then the gray gaze hardened again. "No, sir. Nobody on this ship signed on to be sent on a personal suicide mission, and believe me that's easily what this could become. I refuse to take any subordinate with me."

Jon nodded. "You're right. If it's as dangerous as you say, I agree with you that nobody on the ship should be sent there. But that doesn't mean that nobody has the right to volunteer to go with you." He watched the horror on the Brit's face at the idea of having his private agony made public knowledge. "And I'm volunteering."

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	4. Chapter 4

Malcolm was still in a state of suppressed, seething fury by the time the shuttlepod was ready to go.

He knew – he really did – that Captain Archer's determination to go with him sprang from the best and purest of motives. He thought that the American's generosity and courage were utterly astonishing.

He also wanted to tie him down, batter him senseless with a couple of fifty-litre tins of warp plasma, and then kick him all around the ship.

He'd argued up to and beyond the point of insubordination. Any captain less determined – and less tolerant – would have locked him in the Brig and thrown away the key. He'd written off his chances of ever being considered for promotion within the first couple of sentences, and followed this up by demoting himself to crewman second-class on the extremely remote chance he was still actually employed by Starfleet when all this was over.

The bad bargain on the table, however, was the only one on offer. Take it or leave it.

Take your commanding officer (who had about as much idea as a sponge pudding of what undercover operations could entail!), drag him into an operation that nobody in their senses would even think of attempting, have him get caught, get yourself killed trying to rescue him, and fail utterly in what you were trying to achieve. All because he couldn't get it into his thick head that you _actually knew what you were talking about _and _all this would be SOOOO much less dangerous if you didn't have to look after a well-meaning, stubborn-arsed American who just happened to be one of the most valuable captains in Starfleet!_

The problem was – the insoluble, insuperable problem was – that the aforesaid well-meaning, stubborn-arsed American just happened to have the say-so on your borrowing his ship's shuttlepod. And resourceful as the aforesaid Captain's tactical officer happened to be, even he couldn't manage to steal a shuttlepod and get it away from the ship without anybody noticing, especially since there was now a guard on the launch bay at all times and Trip had started looking at him guiltily, as in the manner of someone who might have had orders to do sneaky things to the shuttlepod's launch controls that might foil anybody's enterprising efforts to get past the guards and nick one.

Even so, he might still have had a go. But the plain fact was that even if he succeeded in stealing one, a shuttlepod couldn't outrun the ship, and it was embarrassingly predictable that any such enterprising effort which succeeded would be very shortly followed by a very large shadow overhead and then a jerking sensation on the hull, indicating that the docking clamp had seized the 'pod like a crane at a fair and was dragging it back into captivity. Which in itself would be annoying, not to mention downright mortifying, but the real problem would be that the _Enterprise _would have broken cover and the whole damned operation was history.

So, unless a couple of nights' sleep had induced the captain to develop a degree of common sense that had been hitherto utterly lacking, he was stuck with his unwanted passenger, and the alternative (and much less sound) plan he'd had to come up with was the one he was going to have to go with.

It seemed, however, that nothing short of being tied up by his senior staff was going to persuade the captain to stay safely with the ship. Malcolm, arriving at the launch bay in his civilian clothes, saw Trip and T'Pol accompanying Captain Archer from the other direction. They appeared to be arguing with him, citing the fact that this area was right on the edge of Klingon space, and Malcolm's spirits rose hopefully, even as he registered the fact that the captain appeared to have dyed his hair dark – presumably as part of some 'disguise'.

"I have been given _direct orders _to 'facilitate this mission in every way possible'," the captain snapped as he came to a halt. "Now I've decided that the best way I can facilitate it is to go on it, and that decision is final. Is that clear?"

It was. Crystal. Malcolm's spirits sank again.

Trip would be getting used to this sort of thing. Being left minding the store, so to speak, while his commanding officer disappeared into the Wide Blue Yonder and didn't leave his hapless junior officers a single bloody clue what had happened. Though at least this time it would be T'Pol in the hot seat having to decide what to do.

Well, this time things would be slightly different, in one respect at least. If the seven day deadline came and went, Trip wouldn't be left completely clueless. Sooner or later he'd get around to clearing Malcolm's things for return to Earth, and there would be a message waiting for him; one with a soppy password that hopefully a soppy Yank could guess pretty easily, given the clues. What this would get him wouldn't be the total truth, but it would be something.

Not enough. But something.

"Right, Lieutenant. Are we cleared to go?"

He looked up into the hazel eyes, and read the clear message there. _If you start arguing, you're just wasting time she may not have._

"Yes, sir."

The guard was gone off the launch bay. Trip came into the shuttlepod with them and did something to the console that certainly wasn't part of the normal pre-flight routine.

Malcolm dumped his baggage behind the pilot's seat. It wasn't in a standard Starfleet carry-all, because he was going to make sure he hadn't still got it when – if – he returned. Some of the things in it would cause _far _too many questions if they were found.

"That's my chair, isn't it, Lieutenant?" asked the captain, with a slight smile.

"It will be presently, sir." He wasn't going to enter the co-ordinates till they were clear of the ship. Admittedly it would be somewhat of a futile gesture in the long run, since _Enterprise _would be able to track the shuttle at that distance, but it would prevent anybody from knowing in advance where they were going.

Already, the old habits of secrecy were reclaiming him...

"Well, good luck," said Trip unhappily. "See ya in a week."

"Please take every care." T'Pol was looking at him piercingly: he thought, with accusation. _Don't blame me, T'Pol, I did my damnedest to talk him out of it. _

"We will." Unfazed, the captain dropped into the co-pilot's chair.

The pre-flight checks were soon complete. Those who were remaining on board retreated to the safety of the control booth, and the launch bay depressurised; the shuttlepod dropped quietly free.

On his mettle in front of one of the best pilots in the Fleet, Malcolm brought the small craft about smoothly. There was a silence as he guided it carefully through the closely clustered asteroids, cutting it close enough not to look over-cautious and far enough away not to be suspected of bravado.

It took them perhaps fifteen minutes to get clear, and as the last pitted lump of rock slid out of view, he finally tapped the co-ordinates into the nav-computers, aware that Captain Archer was watching him with apparent interest. When that was done, and the shuttlepod turned gently to its new heading, he turned towards his commanding officer.

"Sir," he said, "I just want to remind you that on this mission, I'll do whatever I have to do. And you probably won't like it, but you'll just have to trust me."

"I think I can manage that," answered the captain equably. His gaze was heart-rendingly trusting.

"Then can we shake hands, to success?"

Starship captains were evidently not coached in Covert Ops tactics. His hand came out readily, and Malcolm grasped it.

Which meant that he had absolutely no defence ready when his tactical officer's left fist slammed into the side of his face, sending his senses spinning into nowhere.

* * *

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	5. Chapter 5

The deck plating was hard and uncomfortable, but it was the pain that woke him.

"Please don't try to move yet, sir. I haven't quite finished strapping your arm."

Groggily, Jon opened his eyes, but then squeezed them shut again as a wave of nausea rolled over him. "What in hell ..."

"I can give you something for the pain in a minute, but I need to get the arm immobilised first." Malcolm's hands were competent and brisk. Dazed, Jon moved accommodatingly so that the support bandage could be settled into place.

He was on the floor! How had he gotten onto the floor?

– Wait a minute –!

"You _hit _me!" he accused.

"Then I dislocated your shoulder, sir. I put it back in immediately, but I'm afraid you'll be rather uncomfortable for a while. I'm sure Phlox can put right any residual damage when we get back to the ship."

Jon looked up at him incredulously.

"You'll also find I've taken the rank pips off your uniform, which I brought on board," continued his tactical officer calmly. "You'll need to be wearing it when we arrive. As of now, you're a crewman. And – for the purposes of the operation – my prisoner."

Well, that was going to liven up the charge sheet for the court martial if ever Admiral Gardner got hold of the details. Striking a superior officer, grievous bodily harm on a superior officer, demoting a superior officer (and a ship's captain, at that), imprisoning a superior officer, which would presumably happen at some point ... it only remained to be seen what additional exciting charges were available to be leveled by the time they got back to _Enterprise_. The report on this was going to require some serious editing before it was sent out.

"I had to come up with a valid reason for you to be with me," Malcolm went on. "It's a useful explanation for my having a Starfleet shuttlepod in my possession, too. You were carrying out, oh, some research project on a planet somewhere … something boring and safe that _Enterprise _could leave you to complete while they went off to do something else. Deliver medical supplies, perhaps, mediate in a dispute … the sort of thing we've got a name for. And unfortunately for you, I just happened to have been stranded there owing to a … misunderstanding with some unpleasant people I'd tried to swindle."

"So you had to dislocate my arm?"

"You were left minding the shuttlepod, and you were unwise enough to resist." A hard smile. "And I'm not a pilot for preference. Besides, it's always a good idea to arrive in a place like Farlaxi Station with … negotiable goods."

Jon went very still. "You mean a slave."

The other man was now looking through the contents of the emergency medical kit. He selected a hypospray and slotted a cartridge into it, without answering.

"I'm sure you have some explanation ready why _Enterprise _has let you escape with the shuttlepod and one of the crew."

"The ship hasn't returned to pick up the landing party yet and she's out of communicator range. And my plan is to dispose of the evidence … it's not hard to arrange an 'accident' around Farlaxi. If they arrive and find the wreckage, who's to say you weren't in it? There are scavengers out there who'd take your body fast enough. We can arrange some blood for them to find. Some scraps of your uniform. And your chronometer, perhaps." He pressed the hypospray to Jon's neck. The blessed respite from the grinding pain in the injured shoulder was enough for the captain to draw in a great breath of relief.

"I'm hoping this is just a _theoretical_ plan," Jon said, eyeing him with fascinated disgust at the way the story was just spilling out of him as naturally as though kidnapping and enslavement were part of his everyday life. For all that he'd been forewarned, it still wasn't easy to cope with when it was actually happening.

The slightly gentler half-smile that flitted across Malcolm's face in reply wasn't exactly reassuring. "Since we'll be relying on the shuttlepod to get us at least some of the way back towards _Enterprise_, sir, I don't actually plan to wreck it if I can help it."

It was logical enough. Still, the contrast between this man and the one he'd known for more than five years as his tactical officer was great enough for a worm of distaste and doubt to have begun squirming in Jon's stomach, and the answer didn't dispel it. Now, as he got back to his feet and sat down at the secondary crew station, he stared at Malcolm's back as the Brit sat down again in the pilot's seat.

The situation had suddenly brought some hitherto rather nebulous misgivings into sharp focus.

He hadn't let himself dwell much on what he'd discovered about the dark past Reed had so successfully hidden until that business with Phlox and the Klingon plague. The betrayal had hurt like hell, hurt more than he'd thought possible, showing him how utterly he'd trusted the reserved Englishman who had on so many occasions demonstrated his devoted loyalty to the ship. The depth of that trust had been the only measure of the depth of his bitterness when that loyalty proved flawed, and out of the bottomless pit of his pain and anger had come words that had torn the lieutenant like flensing hooks. A man who'd borne the agony of a Romulan mine-spike through his leg without a whimper had needed to turn away in the effort to hide the shameful, upwelling tears, but somehow even that hadn't sated Jon's urge to hurt; he'd flayed Malcolm without a shred of pity, using whatever weapons he'd had in his arsenal to inflict the maximum possible pain.

Afterwards … well, afterwards had been 'difficult' (make that 'impossible') for a while; there had been a short, sharp exchange with Trip on the subject, but then relations between him and Trip had been difficult too – there were too many damaged places between them now for the honesty that would once have been possible. Desperate as he was to have the most talented engineer in the Fleet back on _Enterprise_, Jon had been forced to exercise the utmost forbearance as Trip laid into him on Malcolm's behalf. Even so it had come perilously close to a shouting match, but both of them had backed off, not wanting to rupture afresh the friendship both of them still valued – even after everything that had happened. Nevertheless, the awareness had remained that Trip regarded his treatment of Malcolm as unjust, even downright cruel – by putting him in the Brig he'd effectively put him into the power of the MACOs whose boss Malcolm had crossed and countermanded on so many occasions in the Expanse. Without putting a toe outside the regulations, there were a hundred small indignities that could be visited on a prisoner, and doubtless Malcolm had suffered at least some of them, presumably in silence.

"Couldn't ya have just confined him to his goddamn _quarters?_" Trip had yelled. "What did ya think he was gonna do, blow up the ship?"

He hadn't known _what _Malcolm was going to do. He hadn't known who Malcolm _was_ anymore. And if he'd have thought about the concomitants of his impulsive, instinctive act of ordering the Brit to be thrown into the Brig – which he hadn't – he frankly wouldn't have given a damn. Not at the time. And not a whole lot afterwards, if he was brutally honest.

It was obvious that Malcolm had said nothing to Trip about the more personal and specialized punishment that the captain had inflicted on him. If Trip had known about that, no way would he have been able to hold his tongue about it, no matter what the cost. It was quite possible that he'd have been on the way back to _Columbia_ within the hour, demanding of Erika whether she wanted the services of a new Tactical Officer too, because the jerk in charge of _Enterprise _sure didn't value the decent one he had.

If he hadn't been quite sure that Trip was straight, Jon would have wondered about the nature of the friendship that had developed between him and Malcolm. As for Malcolm's sexual inclinations, they were as much of a mystery as most of the man's inner thoughts, but none of the interactions the captain had seen between the two of them suggested that the Brit regarded the chief engineer as a potential lover. He'd seen affection, camaraderie and even a little healthy rivalry occasionally – basketball games in the gymnasium between Engineering and Armory teams were always hotly contested, with their respective heads the most competitive of the lot – but there was no doubt that each of them regarded the other with enormous respect. It was a friendship that had somehow survived the appalling stresses of the Expanse, whereas his own had been just another casualty of a quest that had robbed him of everything up to and including his integrity, a loss he would mourn till the day he died.

The restored tenor of everyday life had gradually smoothed things back to normal, however, and within a few weeks you'd never have known that any rupture at all had happened. At least, not on the surface. Trust, however, can never be fully restored once it's broken. Although Jon believed he now had Malcolm's full and unconditional loyalty, the belief was now an effort of will more than the unthinking certainty it had been originally. Implicit in that was the acknowledgement that there was, in fact, a possibility that he actually _didn't _have it – that for all the lieutenant's convincing assurances, the shadowy Harris was still in the background, with his fingers on strings that would respond when they were plucked, regardless of later loyalties. Because that was the sort of guy Malcolm was: one who couldn't just turn off his allegiance once given, at least not without enormous struggle.

And now this.

He'd been right to still harbor suspicions, it seemed. But somehow, knowing that his tactical officer had used to be a Covert Ops operative and actually seeing the man in that persona were two completely different things. The one, he could pretty well ignore – had been reasonably successful in pushing to the back of his mind, relegating it to the status of simply another kind of service to Starfleet – and many of his crew had served on other ships; that didn't make them any less valuable to him. Quite the contrary. Experience was an asset for which there was no substitute.

_This_, however….

"I asked you to let me come alone, sir." The lieutenant's voice made him jump.

_So you could go on hiding your other self, Malcolm? So you could go on only showing us what you want us to see? Whereas all the time, there was this … other person in there that we never suspected; who could have a whole other agenda, that we'd never know about?_

Reed turned the seat. Presumably he'd put the controls to autopilot.

"You can't say I didn't warn you, Captain." His voice was infinitely sad and utterly inflexible. "I never wanted you to see what I was … what in some respects I probably always will be. But you insisted on this. For what it's worth, if we get through this I won't contest any transfer arrangement you make for me. If it was up to me, I'd even suggest you be honest about my … previous service, so any future commanding officer knows exactly what they're taking on. Unfortunately, that's not how it works. Starfleet may not want to acknowledge that the Section exists, but they certainly don't want it shut down. Admiral Gardner himself will tell you to keep whatever you know about me as classified."

"So your next captain will be as blind as I was?" The unhealed bitterness broke through, whether he wanted it to or not.

"So my next captain will be as safe as you were."

"I don't think I was 'safe.' I was 'ignorant.'"

"And did I – except for that one time – ever let you down?" He was used to seeing Malcolm's face closed, unrevealing; the answering resentment and pain on it now was startling. "Didn't all the other times count for _anything_, sir? Did you _have _to throw my father's opinion of me in my face? I'd given the ship everything I had – I'd given _you _everything I had. And the one time I failed – the one time you found I couldn't be what you wanted – you turned on me like that. You had every right to discipline me; you had every right to chastise me. You had every right to put me in front of a court-martial and have me kicked off the ship. But you had no right, _no _right, to drag my family into the equation. For what it matters, sir, not everybody has an idyllic relationship with their parents. I was already fully aware what my father would think of my behaviour; I was aware what it would cost me in that respect when I made the decision to do what Harris asked me to. But it may not have occurred to you that you weren't the only person to make unpleasant discoveries that day. Because I assure you, you certainly weren't."

"Well, you've certainly been keeping that lot buttoned down on your chest," said Jon at length.

The gray eyes were as hard as duranium; no trace of tears there now. "There never seemed to be an appropriate moment to discuss it, sir. When you reinstated me, I was grateful. Genuinely grateful. Anything else … well, 'least said, soonest mended,' I suppose." And he turned back to the pilot's console and began studying the long-range scans.

But it hadn't been, Jon realized. Their mutual silence had done nothing to heal the underlying wounds. How could he hold it against Malcolm that things had never been the same since? In some ways they never could have been – their relationship would always carry the scar – but the wound should have been searched, however painful it would have been to both of them. And that failure had been his fault. He was the captain. He should have taken the responsibility for getting this fully sorted out rather than patched up and left to fester, as it had done. Hell, he'd known Malcolm long enough to know that the man would rather be dragged over hot coals than willingly bring up a personal issue with his commanding officer.

The admission needed to be made, and some kind of a proper peace made between them. But no matter how guilty he was, this wasn't the time to do it. It was obvious that Malcolm in this mood was armored, and would immediately perceive any attempt to discuss the matter as some kind of pity, as insulting as it was inappropriate.

"We've got a long way to go, Captain. I suggest you get some sleep. I'll keep watch." The words broke a long silence.

He contemplated them, and found no valid argument. Two and a half days was a long time to be cooped up in a shuttlepod, but then Malcolm would already know that. At least this one had the heating working, and a full supply of air.

Great. And he was wondering why the hell his tactical officer was acting out of character!

There were a couple of sleeping bags among the baggage. He pulled one out and unrolled it. There was space on the floor; the lid from one of the storage benches could be detached and put down to provide a little cushioning for his body, though of course his long legs would spill off it. It wouldn't be all that comfortable, but it'd be better than just the floor.

Without removing his clothes, he got himself into the sleeping bag. The lights in the rear of the shuttlepod dimmed, presumably to facilitate sleeping – though right at that moment he felt as though sleep was just about the last thing he ought to be doing. "Thanks," he mumbled as he arranged himself as best he could on the bench lid, careful to lie on his left side so that his damaged right shoulder shouldn't be jarred.

"You're welcome, sir." The reply was oddly soft, though Malcolm didn't turn around.

The hum of the impulse engine was soothing, and for all the discomforts of his unorthodox sleeping arrangements, Jon found himself realizing just how tired he was. Maybe whatever was in that hypospray had helped too. He shut his eyes.

Maybe tomorrow things would be a little clearer.

* * *

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	6. Chapter 6

It was a while before the captain's soft, lengthened breathing told Malcolm that he was asleep.

After it had continued for five minutes he turned around and stared at his commanding officer, seeing him vulnerable in a way that was never possible in their ordinary interactions. Tiny movements of the closed eyelids revealed that the captain was passing through REM sleep, and his mouth moved as though he was about to speak, though he said nothing and the moment passed.

"'Least said, soonest mended', eh, sir?" Malcolm murmured, but though the words were mocking it was more a mockery of himself, and he turned back to his console and began running yet another of the long-range scans to reassure himself that for the time being, at least, they were still alone.

Eventually confident on that score, he rested his elbows on the console and his chin on the knuckles of his joined hands. Too much had happened too quickly; he couldn't deal with it, couldn't process everything that was now clamouring for his attention. He tried to slow his still rapid breathing and bring down his pulse. Anger was dangerous, clouded one's judgement and led one into mistakes. He couldn't afford anger.

It had been a mistake to have responded to the captain's all-too-obvious disgust at behaviour that was alien to Starfleet officer Lieutenant Reed, but which was characteristic of the Section 31 operative who'd gone by the codename 'Jaguar'. It might have been an idea to warn him in advance that verisimilitude for their cover story would involve some painful but necessary bits of physical rearrangement, but on the other hand, doing so would have made him tense up, which would have made things more painful for him. That was exactly how 'Spots' had explained it to _him _on the first occasion he woke up with exactly the same injuries for exactly the same cause, and once he'd finished painting the walls with every foul expletive in his extremely wide vocabulary he'd seen the sense in it. On an operation, you couldn't rely on remembering to _act_ an injury. By the time they arrived at Farlaxi, the captain would be sporting a first-class bruise on his face and a shoulder of which he could have only limited use. A doctor could patch him up well enough for sale – goods rarely arrived in first-class condition, and the requirement to make the best of a bad job was perfectly well understood – but his credentials as a victim would be clearly established.

Perfectly logical, as T'Pol would say.

Though at a guess, she wouldn't say it in a very approving voice, considering it involved inflicting grievous bodily harm on his commanding officer.

Bad show. Damned bad show, what?

He realised he'd said the words aloud, and stifled a snigger. Maybe he should start recording his farewell letters again. Oh, bugger, he'd already done that. In the aftermath of the episode with Trip in Shuttlepod One, he'd made occasion to record messages on his personal log file, that would be sent out if... Well, at least he'd been able to be as maudlin as he liked in private. Wouldn't want to get the captain cranky at him too, would he?

_You already know what he thinks of you. You don't need to hear that twice._

His hand went involuntarily to the buttoned pocket on the right thigh of his trousers. He pulled out the photograph it contained and stared at it, famished for answers.

Was it coincidence? Was it wishful thinking?

He tried for the thousandth time to remember if there had been any evidence when Pard rejoined them, any clue he'd been too blind to see. Had she been different when she came to his bed, elated with their next success and, like him, high as a kite on adrenaline? Had there been a few extra pounds that he should have noticed, more generous curves under his hands? He hadn't thought, because thinking wasn't part of the equation. Nor caring either, though he supposed that his skills at causing even more explosions hadn't deserted him, to judge by the abuse from the other bunks. Even Leo had finally demanded that Pard 'quit that damned caterwauling', to which he'd responded by making her caterwaul even louder, adding the sound effects of his own release to the racket, just to add to the provocation...

Sometimes she cried afterwards. He'd never tried to find out why. Now, try as he would, he couldn't remember whether this had been one of the times. Memory, as treacherous as friends...

_I have no friends. Friends are people who betray you._

He'd clung to that belief for so long, sheltered behind its freezing walls. Trip had been the one to breach it, Trip with his bloody determination to drag the Brit, kicking and screaming if necessary, into the warmth of belonging. Then, once the breach was made, others were slowly and cautiously and quietly admitted: Travis for one (who could resist liking Travis?), and Hoshi, and even T'Pol in a quiet sort of way ... and...

... Well, yes, Phlox, though he still occasionally thought the Denobulan was actually a closet sadist; and...

...and...

...Jonathan.

That fact he'd kept hidden, barely acknowledged even by himself. It was too difficult, too uncomfortable. His commanding officer could not be a friend. He could hardly bring himself even to _think _Captain Archer's first name, let alone utter it.

And then, on that memorable day, he'd learned what this 'friend' thought of him now. The fortress was breached; he had no defences. The white-hot lance of 'Jonathan's' contempt had pierced him to the core.

_Friends are people who betray you._

At a guess, Jonathan had thought so too. A valuable lesson, if nothing else.

Afterwards, with all his suspicions confirmed, Malcolm had withdrawn just a little from everyone else too. Not so much, perhaps, that it was noticeable; maybe only he had known it. Occasionally Trip had given him slightly sharp looks, but the years of their friendship had enabled him to keep up the pretence well enough. After what he'd done to ... Jonathan ... he didn't want any of the others to find him out the hard way.

Staring out blindly at the stars visible through the windscreen, he paced through the long, sorry history of his failed relationships. Was there something intrinsically missing from his emotional composition that made him so utterly incompetent at connecting to his fellow human beings? If so, was it something that could be learned, or had he been born as surely crippled as though he'd been missing a limb? He'd tried – God alone knew how hard he'd tried. And failed. Always failed.

Pard had been his one success, and that only because their relationship was in itself both superficial and honest. They'd been a pair of users sharing a bed, free from the necessity to pretend to be anything other than they were. That in itself had been a kind of caring, perhaps the only kind for which he was fitted; if nothing else, he'd experienced an acceptance there that had enabled him to occasionally look at what he'd become without loathing it.

For that, at least, he owed her.

Enough to want the truth.

And whatever the truth was, there was a little girl somewhere out there, with Pard's hair and Pard's smile. A little girl from whose present plight he was carefully keeping his mind, because there was nothing he could do about it right now. But when the time came...

The movement had used to be one of the little rituals before an op; everyone had their own. He extended his right hand, slowly and deliberately spreading his fingers to their widest extent. In his mind, the well-manicured nails disappeared. Each finger ended in a soft pad, with a slot hidden in the silky fur. And as he drew his fingers into a curve, the claws slid out: duranium hooks, each sharpened till the light ran down the inner edge and splintered on it.

_'I am become Death.'_

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	7. Chapter 7

It was towards the end of the second day that they intercepted the transmission.

It was an all-purpose hail, not apparently aimed at them or at anyone in particular. Nor did it ask for introductions or explanations of their presence. It simply announced that 'strict trade rules must be complied with'.

Malcolm, woken from an apparently sound sleep by the UT's rendition of the warning, came quickly to the console and tapped out a sequence of numbers in reply.

Another sequence came back after a few moments, to which he replied with a shorter sequence and a verbal rider in distinctly colloquial English.

Jon's eyebrows rose.

Another and longer pause followed. Then the comms board crackled into life, with the UT hooked into it.

"Still with us, then, you scrawny little _uit ge'falla?_" Presumably that was a term the UT programming didn't include. "I'd have thought someone would have separated you from your _chiath _years ago."

"No. Still attached." A feral smile twisted Malcolm's mouth. "No thanks to you, you brainless _hachhuk. _Give my love to Naz's sisters. I'm sure they still remember me fondly."

"'Fondly'? They said they'd break you in half if they ever clapped eyes on you again."

"Thanks for the warning. I'll keep my distance." They both laughed. "We'll have a chat in the usual place once I've got the goods tucked away safely."

He closed the transmission, and Jon eyed him.

"'The goods?'" The captain's voice was measured.

The lieutenant shrugged. "Just a logical precaution, sir. As a Starfleet crewman you're hardly likely to give me your parole. And if you did, I'm hardly likely to accept it."

"So presumably I allow you to lock me up somewhere and wait for you to come back."

"If you trust me, you do. Sir." The gray eyes were unreadable.

_And suppose you don't come back at all, Malcolm? What then?_

Without commenting, Archer shifted slightly in the pilot's seat, trying to ease his shoulder, which had stiffened up even despite another couple of doses with the hypospray. The enclosed space in the shuttlepod was beginning to wear on him, though the two of them had been careful to afford each other as much consideration and courtesy as could be contrived in the circumstances. He remembered forcing a discussion with Trip about that disastrous mission he and Malcolm had undertaken in Shuttlepod One, and being surprised by the way Trip had almost shouted that being trapped in there with the Grim Reaper for two days was enough to drive any guy nuts even if they hadn't thought _Enterprise _was history. That reaction had been explained pretty clearly shortly afterwards when both men were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress, but even so he'd expected to have a pretty tough time. It hadn't happened. After that first day, their conversations had been carefully confined to the most neutral of subjects, and now he thought it was just the sensation of being cooped up for so long that was getting to him. Malcolm, when he had his guard down (insofar as he ever _did _let it down), was a surprisingly agreeable companion.

"We've got company." The lieutenant had been watching the sensor readouts and picked up the winking signal as soon as it appeared.

"Try to lose them?"

"No. Hold our course."

It felt slightly weird, being the one taking the orders instead of giving them. He kept an eye on the information the scanners fed through. Just as well they weren't trying to outrun their visitor; although he didn't recognize the conformation, it was fast.

It came up on their starboard side, jinked suddenly to fly astern of them and then pulled off an incredibly tight inside turn on its _x _axis and sped past them, going abruptly to warp. Throughout what had certainly been an inspection flyby, Malcolm's fingers had rested lightly on the weapons controls, but he didn't attempt to fire, or even get a weapons lock just in case.

"Friends of yours?"

"No."

"Acquaintances?"

"Something like that." Eyes narrowed, the Englishman watched the speck vanish from the sensors. "It gives me the answer to one interesting question, anyway."

"Which is?"

"They aren't going to kill me on sight."

"Well, it's a start." Jon let out a breath, as stealthily as he could. Then, watching the smaller man relax, he decided that he wanted, and deserved, to know a heck of a lot more than he did yet about what Malcolm thought was going to happen when the shuttlepod reached Farlaxi Station.

"I gather you intend to use me as part of your cover story," he said casually. "Mind letting me in on any of the rest of it?"

"There really isn't much 'rest of it', sir." Malcolm stared unseeingly through the viewscreen. "I'm going to supposedly offer you as part of a deal. If it goes through, as soon as I have Keri safe I'll come after you." He nodded at the support bandage. "I wasn't going to mention this, but when I dislocated your shoulder I inserted a chip into you. Where it is, it'll just look like a bone splinter if you're scanned."

_Another Section 31 trick?_ Jon wondered uneasily, but said nothing.

"Farlaxi handles a lot of the slave trade in this area of the quadrant; I'm taking a chance that Keri will have been brought through here. I plan to let it be known that I have ... specialised preferences." The lieutenant's mouth twisted. "For the right price, with the right contacts, there's not much you can't buy on Farlaxi Station."

"She may have been disposed of already." The captain spoke very quietly. "But I'm sure you've already considered that." He knew that his tactical officer was trained to consider every eventuality, even the worst, and would not have flinched from it on this occasion, however much agony it brought him.

"It's possible." Malcolm's face was so still that anyone who didn't know him really, really well might have mistaken it for indifferent. "But even out here, they listen to the news broadcasts. Someone as famous as the Grenhams can afford to make appeals, offer rewards, hire detectives – all the sorts of activity that would make it risky to put a pretty little human girl on the open market straight away. It's more likely that they'll hold on to her for a while, till the hue and cry's died down a bit. Unless, of course, they get an offer from someone who they know will keep his mouth shut – an offer that's too good to refuse."

"And you think you'll get that sort of money just by selling _me?_" asked Jon incredulously. Admittedly his value as a captain to Starfleet was enormous, but he wasn't nearly vain enough to think that as an anonymous slave in an alien market he was going to fetch sums beyond the dreams of avarice.

"Not really, sir." Unexpectedly, Malcolm grinned. "I was thinking of you more in the light of a 'down-payment'."

The captain grinned back at him. "Just for a moment there, I thought you were implying I was valuable."

"Oh, no, sir," said the lieutenant solemnly. "I wouldn't want to give you false hopes."

And suddenly somehow, in spite of everything, the two of them were laughing.

* * *

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	8. Chapter 8

Farlaxi Station was not, at first glance, a prepossessing place.

It was on one of the five moons circling a gas giant whose originally enormous parent star had shrunk to a sullen red dwarf. From time to time solar flares erupted from the surface, sending vast flashes of lurid lemon light across the face of the planet. When this happened, the reflected glow drenched Farlaxi, illuminating a settlement that at a guess would very much rather have kept its details discreetly hidden. Fortunately the star was dying, and its death throes were spasmodic and rare. For most of the time it was content to smoulder, bathing its only offspring planet and its moons in a dreary crimson glow.

Two of the five moons had an atmosphere, but the one on which the trading post had been established was fractionally more hospitable than the other – at least, in that its huge oceans were not made of liquid methane. They were locked solid in the moon's eternal winter (a fact that Jon imagined would be reassuring to Malcolm), but they were H2O, and doubtless constituted a source of drinking water to the colony. Heat could be generated and food could be imported, but breathable air and free water were valuable resources, and explained the presence of the station. Its isolation, not to mention its murky illumination, was another benefit that the current occupants would find attractive. They certainly wouldn't mind the fact that the bare, ugly landscape would never tempt any passing ship to visit for pleasure, or that nobody would ever consider the place as a potential location for a holiday resort. The moon was like its inhabitants – cold, hostile and secretive. Not to mention potentially deadly.

The shuttlepod was challenged twice by the station's flight control people before being given clearance to land. The second time, they were allocated a bay in a small, ill-lit spaceport, already accommodating a number of mostly larger craft, none of which bore legible registry numbers. Jon piloted the 'pod down, trying to think himself fully into the character of a terrified individual at the mercy of a ruthless stranger. Malcolm had already warned him that from the moment they touched down, it would be necessary for them to maintain the pretense every single second, no matter what happened to either of them.

"You won't like me, sir," he'd said, repeating almost word for word what he'd said at the start of the mission. His gaze was bleak but unflinching. "But you'll just have to trust me all the same."

'Trust.' There was that word again.

Glancing across at his lieutenant as the note of the shuttlepod engine died away, Archer thought that it wasn't just the landscape that looked cold, hostile and secretive. By some inner alchemy, Malcolm had altered even the way he moved. He was standing beside the port hatch, but took a couple of steps forward to peer through the viewscreen, and something about his attitude and expression as he did so touched a memory in the captain's mind. Last Movie Night, Trip had picked a so-called 'classic' from the late 20th century that had featured an island where scientists had managed to extract viable dinosaur DNA from prehistoric insects entombed in amber and used it to actually create live dinosaurs – with predictable results for the human visitors. One of the more spine-tingling scenes had featured two children being hunted through a kitchen area by three small, vicious dinosaurs – more than one of the female crewmembers had made _squee!-_type noises at this point, and even Phlox had paused in his munching of popcorn until the situation was safely resolved. Trouble was, the scene had been vivid enough to embed the name of these beady-eyed predators in the mind, and looking at Malcolm now it came back, full force.

_Velociraptor._

Reed's head turned towards him. The wide, too-bright stare fixed him, and the brief smile should have shown _way _more teeth, for all that it had exactly the right amount of humor.

"Sorry, mate. Time for the latest fashion accessory."

There was a phase pistol in his hand. Jon hadn't seen how it got there.

The captain's pulse was quicker than it should have been as he slowly raised his hands – the right hand only part-way up, and with real difficulty. "Don't shoot. I'll co-operate."

"Very sensible." Still covering him with the pistol, Malcolm opened the zipper of the carryall and lifted out an artifact that was immediately recognizable as a set of home-made handcuffs, separated by a slender metal bar some thirty centimeters long. He laid it on the console and gestured the captain to lay his wrists in the open cuffs.

There was no point in resisting. Sullenly, Jon obeyed. His right shoulder was still painful enough to make the support bandage an absolute necessity, at least until he got some proper treatment for it, but he managed to twist his arm enough to get it in the right position without fouling the bandage.

For all the word 'trust', something like real panic surged up inside him as the locks clicked closed. The width of each metal band and the length of the bar between them prevented him from meddling with the locking mechanisms even if the opportunity offered. He truly was a prisoner now.

There was a tap on the hatch.

Malcolm moved to it, soft-footed and swift, switching on the UT clipped at his belt.

Jon wondered whether, if this was all for real, he'd take a chance on launching an attack on his captor while his attention was diverted. On reflection, however, it didn't seem such a good plan. The phase pistol was still aimed in his direction, and he'd seen often enough during sparring practice in the gym on board ship that his weapons officer had the reflexes of a cat. Besides, such a response would be more in keeping with an experienced starship officer than a green crewman who'd allowed a criminal to get the drop on him and make off with both him and the valuable shuttlepod, leaving the rest of the landing party stranded. For the sake of authenticity – not to mention preserving his status as a compliant piece of merchandise unlikely to cause any purchaser undue difficulty – it would undoubtedly be best to act as though completely cowed by his predicament.

Besides, what the hell would happen if, by some unlikely chance, he actually succeeded in taking Malcolm by surprise?

No. Best, on all counts, to lie low and await developments.

After perhaps twenty seconds' silence, there was another tap. Undoubtedly responding to some kind of signal, the lieutenant operated the door control. The hatch swung upward and out, opening on darkness and a gust of bitterly cold wind.

Something small and metallic was thrown instantly in through the doorway. Malcolm pivoted and fired, hitting it before it had time to hit the floor. The thing exploded, sending fragments flying. One of the bits that flew past Jon's face and hit the wall had what looked like a smear of putty adhering to it.

A couple of them had hit Malcolm too. A trickle of blood ran down his jaw from a shallow cut beside his mouth, and a dark stain appeared just above the left knee on his black denim pants.

He spun back towards the hatch and screamed a torrent of foul-mouthed abuse through it. The UT probably struggled with some of the words he used, but you wouldn't have caught Lieutenant Malcolm Reed even _knowing _half those epithets.

A torrent of abuse came back. The UT was definitely struggling, but there were references to Mary Reed's dubious place of employment at the time of Malcolm's conception, and possibly Phlox might have been wiser as regards various diseases Stuart Reed had supposedly been suffering from.

"But at least you haven't forgotten how to shoot, even if you are a _teilocta-vath_," it ended, in the tone of one making a huge concession. "Welcome back to Farlaxi, J'Kar."

"I'll always be a good enough shot for anything you could bung at me, So'owith, you bastard." Reed shoved the phase pistol into the holster at his hip.

"Next time, J'Kar. Next time I'll throw faster." A gloved hand seized the side of the hatch opening, and Malcolm reached out and grabbed the arm it belonged to, hauling the visitor aboard.

The newcomer was a couple of centimeters taller than Malcolm, and appeared humanoid in general construction, though as he or she was wearing what was undoubtedly some form of protective gear against the bitter temperatures outside, the details of the body were unclear. The UT suggested that the speaker was male, but there was some doubt on that score. A heavy scarf was wrapped around the face and head, but through a gap in it a pair of goggles were visible. The lenses were dark green, hiding the eyes that were undoubtedly behind it.

The visitor swung a searching look around the shuttlepod, gaze alighting only briefly on the man in the pilot's seat.

"Bit different from what you came in last time, eh?"

"Had a bit of a disagreement. Bastards." Malcolm's right fist flickered through a gesture that was presumably an offensive one. "I had to borrow this one, you might say."

"Must be a pretty temporary loan," observed the other. "The mama bird can't be too far away."

"Oh, I don't mind them finding it. As long as they can't get too good a look at it." He smirked. "They shouldn't turn up for a day or two yet, anyway. I've got it all worked out."

"Surprise. Well, are we going to stand here all night, or are you coming for a drink?"

"I thought you'd never ask." He walked over to Jon and cuffed him around the head. "Up, you. And don't even _think_ about trying to be a hero."

"Please don't hurt me," mumbled the captain, rising obediently to stand hunched over his handcuffs.

"Please. You'll make my friend here think I've been rough with you. And I was so careful to be gentle." He leaned forward and kissed him full on the mouth.

Jon didn't have to fake his reaction. He jerked backwards.

Malcolm's hand was on the metal between his wrists, and yanked him forward again. "Not shy still, surely? Now we're such friends?" His grin was loathsome.

So'owith had been impudently checking the contents of the storage lockers, but glanced around at that and saw Reed's free hand running caressingly down the prisoner's face. He made a sound like water going down a drain – presumably a chuckle. "If you've sampled the goods, I hope you haven't marked them."

"Come on. You think I'm an amateur? Not so much as a thumb-print."

"So he hurt his face and broke his arm being co-operative."

"He hurt his face and _damaged _his arm being a fool. I had to straighten a few things out before he realized who was in charge."

"Then I hope he's learned his lesson. Any more marks and you'll have to drop the price." The alien shrugged and turned away.

"Oh, he's learned it all right. He may be big, but he's gutless. Come on, you." Malcolm picked up something from behind the co-pilot's seat that he had presumably secreted there at some point during the flight. It was undoubtedly some kind of weapon; the handle at the base of it had a crude trigger, while the tip boasted three small tines. The long shaft in between gleamed dully. "You already know you don't like this. Don't make me use it on you again."

Picking up his cue, Jon whimpered. "Don't…."

Cold air was still blasting in through the open door. With a curse, Malcolm pulled a thick jacket from the grubby carryall and donned it, moving the weapon from hand to hand to keep it trained on his prisoner as he did so. "Is that damned uniform all you have?"

The captain nodded towards the lockers. "There should be coats. Sir."

Maintaining a façade of suspicion, Reed moved to the wrong locker, opened it and found no coats, but there was the First Aid kit, which he pulled out and dropped on to the nearest bench. Rooting through it carelessly, he pulled out a couple of pieces of gauze and a bottle of antiseptic, with which he dabbed the cut on his face and the hole in his leg, hissing at the pain. A fortunately small piece of shrapnel was embedded in the hole and he sat down and pulled it out with a pair of tweezers, cursing fluently.

"Didn't miss you completely then, J'Kar?" said their visitor, with an audible smirk.

"Just a couple of grazes. Don't flatter yourself." He dropped the shard on the floor and left the kit lying open as he turned to the other locker and pulled out one of the coats it contained. He thrust this at Jon. "Here. I don't want you bloody freezing to death. Just don't mistake my soft-heartedness for stupidity, or it'll be the last mistake you ever make." He put a hand into one of his pants pockets and activated some kind of control there. The wrist bracelets disengaged and the device fell to the floor.

"Put it on. Fast. We haven't got all night."

There was no offer to help, and not a sign that he cared how painful it was to push the injured arm through the sleeve; he simply stood back and watched, his face as cold and unmoved as that of a marble statue.

By the time the coat was on, and zipped up with difficulty, So'owith was showing definite signs of impatience. "Ziv's balls, can we get a move on before we all freeze to death?" He strode forward. Jon was fumbling the bandage back into place, and the alien picked up the handcuffs and with brutal indifference wrenched his arms into position on them, not even seeming to hear his involuntary gasp of pain. There was a click, and the locks re-engaged.

He was a prisoner again.

And the man whom he could no longer absolutely trust looked across at him and smiled.

Like a velociraptor who has suddenly heard the word _lunch._

* * *

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	9. Chapter 9

They left the spaceport, heads down against the icy teeth of the wind, which hurled chips of ice into their faces like a thousand tiny knives.

Within moments Jon's unprotected hands had lost all feeling. He was thankful beyond measure for the coat, even though it felt as though the blast passed straight through it and went whistling between his ribs, taking his flesh with it out the other side. The temperature on this world must be perpetually arctic, and the sudden mild sensations of headache and nausea that accompanied his difficulty in breathing told him that the atmosphere was thin too.

Outside the perimeter fence a squat craft was parked up; not a flitter, but one that ran on a knee-high monorail whose supports were half-buried in blown grains of ice. Some kind of device under its nose was presumably responsible for clearing the rail itself during transit.

As the three of them approached, a door on the side nearest to them slid back, probably in response to some proximity signal. The inside was dirty, but surprisingly roomy. A single driver's seat sat at the front, facing the control panels. The space behind it was empty – at a guess, left so for cargo. What sort of cargo, Jon preferred not to speculate. The inadequate lighting provided by the automatic illumination panels beside the door revealed dark stains on the floor. Most looked old, but he thought some were recent.

"In you go." Malcolm gestured with the pronged weapon. His coat had a fur-lined hood, but in the depths of it his face looked pinched with cold.

Grateful for the prospect of at least getting some shelter from the bitter wind, the captain scrambled inside and made for what seemed the most sheltered corner, where he huddled, blowing on his hands in the attempt to get feeling back into them. Uncontrollable shivers shook his body until he was only surprised they didn't rattle the transport. He didn't know what the temperature was out there, but it must be dozens of degrees below Celsius.

Malcolm followed him in and sat in the opposite corner, the weapon still held at the ready. Even his far sturdier clothing hadn't saved him from some share in the suffering; there was a stutter in his soft exhalations, and his body was rigid, his free hand still thrust deep into a pocket in the effort to protect it.

So'owith dropped into the driver's seat. He pulled off a glove and laid a hand on a glazed square in the center of the instrument panel. A motor started up deep in the craft's guts, and the door slid shut.

Vents around the cargo area started hissing gently, and Jon immediately tensed, but Malcolm turned to the nearest and inhaled deeply, signaling him that it was safe. It was air – oxygen-rich and, above all, _warm. _He lifted his cramped, frozen hands to the vent next to him, ignoring even the renewed pain in his shoulder in the effort to stave off what felt like imminent frostbite. The oxygen flooded his lungs and the hit of it went to his brain like champagne, banishing his headache and causing a momentary feeling of ridiculous euphoria.

"Got to keep our guests happy," said their host with what was probably wholly spurious conviviality. "Next stop, the Pleasure Palace." And with a slight jerk, the craft started to move forward.

The drive was not a long one – perhaps ten minutes. It was difficult to make an estimate of speed or distance; the acceleration was very smooth after that initial sharp start, and there were no lights visible through the windscreen. The journey must have been automated, for the driver did not seem to do anything to the controls, but sat lounging in the seat, idly watching the granular 'snow' driven in flurries across the darkened windshield.

Presently, however, there was a sense of slowing down. Dim lights began to be visible beyond the dirty glass, coming closer. It was possible to make out the shapes of a huddled township, into which the rail plunged, carrying the vehicle with it. Buildings slipped past, mostly darkened, one or two shuttered and secretive. Though the noise of the motor was so quiet that even the scouring of the wind on the hull was audible, there was no sound from outside. They may as well have been driving through a ghost town.

The transport stopped quite smoothly. Jon had just gotten some feeling back into his hands, and gathered himself together with a painful effort to endure another trudge through the freezing, eternal night outside. He just hoped it wouldn't be too long.

Still, it took some restraint not to utter a moan of dismay as the door slid open again, sucking out the atmosphere that by comparison had begun to feel practically toasty.

Through the doorway, a narrow, ill-lit street was visible. Mostly blank walls frowned on either side. Only a window high on one of them shed sufficient light to show any details at all, and further on the place retreated into its perpetual native darkness.

"Don't worry, sunshine, it's not far." Malcolm slipped a supporting hand across his shoulders as he scrambled awkwardly out of the hatch – a solicitude completely belied by the fact that the other hand still held the weapon, leveled and ready. "Now, just behave yourself and you won't have anything to worry about. At least for tonight. OK?"

"OK," the captain mumbled submissively. His slight shrinking from the contact wasn't entirely pretended.

Maybe Malcolm hadn't noticed.

"Good lad. You be sensible and I'll be nice."

So'owith, striding off in the lead, muttered something inaudible and snickered. Behind them, the vehicle slid away into the darkness, presumably still under remote control.

The buildings didn't block the wind, just funneled it. Perhaps it was only Jon's festering imagination that filled it with the sound of moaning voices, rising and falling in some lament of the perpetually damned.

As he stumbled along, he put himself briefly in Malcolm's place; imagined it was his little daughter who'd been kidnapped and held prisoner in such a hell-hole, awaiting sale to the highest bidder. Fear and awe warred in him, and he wondered yet again if he'd ever really known Malcolm Reed at all. Maybe before all this was over, he'd know far more about him than he'd ever really wanted to.

Fortunately their destination was no more than five minutes' walk away. So'owith glanced at a small empty crate lying skewed beside a doorway, and turned abruptly to lift the latch of the door, which seemed to be unlocked. Instead of opening inwards, it moved back and slid sidelong into the thickness of the wall, only parting just wide enough to let a person of medium build slip through sideways. A number of heavy, thick dark furs draped behind it held out the cold and brought momentary disorientation until the searching hand discovered the path between them; a useful delay, no doubt, if the visitor in question was not particularly welcome, affording ample time for a suitable reception to be prepared. The absurd comparison slipped into Jon's mind, of the four Pevensie children pushing through the Wardrobe's fur coats and finding themselves in Narnia. Well, whatever he was going to find here, he doubted it would be anything even remotely as enchanting as a faun doing his Christmas shopping.

And so it proved. The single long room within was warm enough, and seemed to be provided with additional oxygen, but it was yet again poorly lit; he wondered if anywhere on this godforsaken planet actually used full illumination. Nevertheless, there was enough light cast by the two flickering wall-lamps nearby to show that it was a residence. The nearer end was provided with leisure seating and a table, all showing signs of long use and little care. The further end was what seemed to be a communal sleeping area, its walls lined with twin bunks that could probably accommodate twenty or so people. Some of them seemed to be occupied, but nobody stirred.

"Goods in the usual place," grunted So'owith, starting to unwrap the bindings from around his head.

"Sure." Malcolm gestured with the weapon towards the sleeping area. "Come on, sunshine."

_That's 'Captain' to you, Lieutenant, _Jon thought sourly, but he moved as bidden.

One of the lower bunks was unoccupied. It was hardly a surprise that the blankets on it were dirty, but they were better than some of the others'. As for the mattress … well, better not to think about that.

Now that they were close, it was visible that each of the bunks came complete with a shackle. There was enough length in the chain to allow the occupier to turn over and lie in any position they chose, but that was about it.

In the endless seconds it took for Malcolm to slip the cuff around his wrist, below the other – which was left in place – Jon's eyes moved involuntarily around to the other prisoners. A mixed bag, from what he could see; none with the spirit or energy left to evince any curiosity, they lay huddled under their blankets and ignored the new arrivals – husbanding their remaining resources, no doubt, to cope with whatever fate had in store for them next. If there were to be any attempt at a breakout, he doubted any of this lot would be leading it.

"Get some rest. There'll be food in a few minutes," said Malcolm carelessly. "I'd eat it, if I were you."

Jon sat down on the bunk. He'd have to lie down sooner or later, but he was in no rush to get better acquainted with whatever germs and bugs were inhabiting that mattress. And besides, if the handcuffs weren't removed, he was going to have a really tough time achieving enough comfort to get to sleep.

"What's going to happen to me?" he asked.

The other man shrugged. "I'm afraid I haven't got a crystal ball. Depends on who buys you."

"_Buys me?_" His voice rose in a shriek of fear. "You – you said I'd be safe! If I co-operated–"

The fine eyebrows rose. "You look safe enough to me."

"No! You can't do this! The _Enterprise–!"_

"Did he say '_Enterprise'_?" So'owith had moved to a cupboard at the side of the room and was taking out a flask that presumably contained some sort of drink, but now he stopped, frowning. "Is that where that shuttle's from?"

Another shrug. "What difference does it make? By the time they get here he'll be long gone and so will I. All you have to do is keep your mouth shut, and what can they prove?"

The alien turned around fully. It was now visible that his face was no more than superficially human: the need for so much wrapping was explained by the fact that he was quite hairless, and the eyes the goggles had hidden were as round as golf balls. The chief difference, however, lay in the structure of his mouth and jaw. The entire lower half of his face protruded in a way that gave it a resemblance to a bill like that of a platypus. The flared nostrils above it suggested that he had an acute sense of smell.

"You still hang out with some dangerous people, J'Kar. That ship's bad news."

"I wasn't in a position to be choosy." A sour expression crossed his face as he walked back to the living area and threw himself carelessly into the nearest chair. He took out a piece of gauze from his pocket and pressed it irritably to the wound in his leg, which had continued to bleed. "Don't worry, I've got everything planned. As soon as he's sold, the shuttle goes for a little dive into the ice, along with a few bits of his uniform, and I'm out of here on the next transport. Dead crewmen tell no tales."

So'owith's bill-mouth crumpled with what looked like disapproval as he went on with pouring drink from the flask into a couple of crudely made earthenware bowls. "It won't be good for trade with a Starfleet ship hanging around. People asking questions."

"Why should they hang around? I'll make sure they get the answers they need. If not those they want. Now give me a drink before my own tongue chokes me."

"If it does, it'll beat a good few people to the job." He handed over a bowl and took another of the seats. "Did you have any particular buyer in mind? I take it you can't wait for the market and I don't suppose you'd trust me to look after him for you."

"I'd trust you even less than I'd trust my own grandmother. And she sold my mother to a cat-house." They both laughed uproariously, though the alien's laugh sounded like a goose being strangled. "No, I thought I might pay a call on Kazary."

So'owith had just been slurping from the bowl, but at this he almost choked. "You're serious?"

"Quite."

It hardly seemed possible for the slaver's eyes to get any rounder, but somehow they managed it.

"Since my last visit, I've had … experiences … that I'm keen to repeat." Malcolm's voice had dropped, and acquired an ugly, lascivious note. "While I'm here…"

Jon noted that even So'owith appeared a little uncomfortable for some reason. But at that moment the door opened and a rag-clad figure shambled in, carrying a covered bowl. Tattered swathes of cloth across the head hid its species as effectively as those around the body disguised its gender, and it did not speak. Neither did So'owith or Malcolm give any indication that they noticed its existence.

It moved to another cupboard and took out two smaller bowls, into each of which it poured a generous measure of the contents of the bowl it had brought in. It handed them to Malcolm and So'owith, its body language suggesting it was anticipating a blow by way of a reward. None was forthcoming, though it ducked away almost reflexively.

The smell of the food had wafted down towards the bunks. The occupants had begun to stir hopefully.

"No fighting!" shouted So'owith, laying his own food aside, presumably to allow it to cool a little. "Or you know what you'll get!"

The food-server went back to the cupboard and took from it a number of rather battered metal bowls, which he distributed among the prisoners. Jon took one and rubbed it automatically with his sleeve, in the effort to clean it up even a little before something was put in it that he'd be expected to eat.

From a knapsack across the hunched shoulders, hunks of bread were produced, and one was dropped into each bowl. Then a portion of some kind of heavily spiced stew was ladled in on top.

No eating utensils were provided. Presumably they were too likely to be used as weapons. Not that there seemed any likelihood of fights breaking out; if the prisoners had any spirit it might have been expected to happen, but this lot were cowed, beaten. Best to pretend he was, too.

Keeping up the charade, Jon retreated into the shelter of the corner of his bunk and ate the food as best he could with his fingers, using chunks of the bread to help scoop it up.

At the far end of the room, Malcolm and So'owith had fallen into low-voiced conversation. Try as he might, he couldn't hear what they were saying, but perhaps ten minutes later the lieutenant made his way down the room.

"I have a few calls to make," he said, lounging against the bunk. "I just thought I'd mention that trying to get out of here is not a good idea. This place is quite used to silly people taking silly chances, so if I were you I'd just try to catch a bit of shut-eye. I'll speak to you again when I come back."

"You said I'd be safe," accused Jon in a low, unsteady voice. "You never said I'd be sold as a slave!"

"Just because I didn't say it, mate, doesn't mean I didn't know it. And as for safe, well, who says a slave isn't safe? If he's valuable and does as he's told, he's as safe as houses. Take it from me." And with an exaggerated wink, Malcolm pushed off from the bunk and strolled back to down the last gulp of wine before re-donning his jacket and accompanying So'owith from the house again.

There seemed no help for it. Reluctant but resigned, Jon picked out the cleanest patch of the mattress he could see and lay down on it, tugging the blankets on top of himself with difficulty. There was nothing for him to do now but wait.

Sleep felt like an impossibility; there were too many thoughts churning around in his head. The ship would have tracked the shuttle, even at an enormous distance; he couldn't imagine T'Pol removing it beyond sensor range altogether. Even if that was the case, they knew the shuttle's travel capability from the drop-off point. They'd simply have to chart all the Minshara-class planets within the available distance, and in this area there surely couldn't be many. Sooner or later, even if the 'pod never made the rendezvous, _Enterprise _would come…

… But what would there be left for her to find?

* * *

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	10. Chapter 10

Malcolm hunched himself into the jacket as he followed his companion through the freezing black windswept warren that was Farlaxi Station.

His mood, at that moment, was foul.

It hadn't been possible to formulate much by way of a plan that would hold together in such circumstances as these. Better, in his opinion, to take things as they came. He had ideas, but when you were as deep undercover as this, you had to go with the flow a lot of the time.

Which was all very well for him, because time had been when that was simply what survival depended on, and certainly there had been moments back then when he hadn't cared very much whether he lived or died. After all, nobody much gave a toss about him. There's a certain bleak and barren freedom in being an outcast; those with whom you live and work are outcasts too, and understand the price.

Jonathan Archer, on the other hand, was portraying all too well the character he was supposed to be – taken utterly aback by the turn of events, and appalled by the cruelty of those into whose hands he had fallen.

Including those of one Lieutenant Malcolm Reed, lately Tactical Officer of the NX-01 _Enterprise_. But doubtless not occupying that post for very much longer, if they got out of this alive at all.

Still. If he somehow miraculously managed to get both of them and Keri to safety, doubtless the Section would welcome him with open arms. Harris had implied as much at the time of the Terra Prime affair. And maybe now he'd be even more useful, because now he really wouldn't give a damn if he lived or died.

The opening of a door jerked him from his black reflections. A well-remembered warm fug enveloped him.

The inhabitants of Farlaxi Station could never have been described as the most social crowd, but there was a gathering place of sorts – a 'dive', as Trip would call it – where anyone feeling the call of mingling with their fellows or even just a change of scene could find cheap alcohol and even cheaper company. It naturally also functioned as the station brothel, and as if running both of these necessary and lucrative functions wasn't enough, the proprietor thereof and his minions also had a high-tech room where they kept a beady eye on approaching traffic from space, ready to alert those whose job it was to deter unwanted visitors. It was Naz who would have detected the shuttlepod's arrival and passed on the recognition code to So'owith; the subsequent flyby would have been ordered just to check that the expected visitor posed no unexpected threats. This was where the panic button would have been pressed if it had been _Enterprise _arriving, in the extremely unlikely event that she'd managed to get so close without being detected by other watchful eyes. It was also Naz whose sisters had such long and not wholly affectionate memories of Malcolm's previous visit – presumably they'd compared notes afterwards and put two and two together.

Well, that probably wouldn't have worried Naz all that much. He'd undoubtedly have had them working upstairs if he hadn't been scared they'd find some way to knife him in his sleep for not giving them a fair share of their earnings.

So'owith led the way to a table – unsurprisingly, all the tables were at least partly screened off from one another, though they were all naturally in view from the bar, where Naz himself was presiding over the decanting of a quantity of spirit into a glass flask that seemed far too fine for its surroundings. Considering the man had the jovial air of a born publican, his pale and gaunt appearance presented a most disconcerting contrast.

A waitress appeared, her attire presumably meant to draw customers' minds to what else the establishment had to offer. So'owith ordered, and she drifted away; Malcolm's gaze and mind dropped her like a cat dropping a dead bird.

His companion was leaning across the table, his expression one of intense curiosity. "You really want to talk to Kazary? There's someone I know who has some rare stock for sale…"

"I don't mind taking a look," he said with a shrug. "But like I said – I'm after something in particular." He described exactly what. His mind detached itself from what was coming out of his mouth, though he felt his soul rending at its moorings.

"That'll cost you," So'owith remarked, eyeing him with something between wonder and distaste.

"My credit's good." So it was, thanks to a certain talented individual employed by the Section, who had quietly inserted a handsome amount of cash in his name into the deposits centre of a bank on a nearby world which handled the station's more reputable finances, where it was ready to be inspected if required, and even spent if necessary – though if he had anything to say in the matter, that was where it would stay until the Section removed it again.

"J'Kar!" Naz materialized beside the table. He'd obviously noticed the new arrival and elected to bring the drinks himself. Anyone who didn't know better would think that Malcolm was the original Prodigal Son, to judge by the size of the beam that spread itself across the unlikely tapestry of the bar-keeper's usually lugubrious countenance. "I was beginning to think you'd changed your mind about visiting us!"

"Oh, I couldn't visit Farlaxi and not call in to say hello." The lieutenant leaned back lazily in his chair. "I trust Venni and Sher are as delectable as ever? Do give them my regards."

Naz tittered dutifully. "You're lucky. They're off working somewhere. Otherwise I'm sure they'd like to have the chance to remember themselves to you."

"And there was I thinking I'd given them plenty of reasons to miss me."

"Oh, they wouldn't miss you. They're both really good shots."

So'owith sniggered.

"Naz, Naz. Your sparkling wit really will get you into trouble one of these days." Malcolm smiled affably at him. "I'm a fair shot myself, you remember. Just as well for you that I never practise on my friends."

The bar owner's smile slipped ever so slightly for a second before he resolutely pinned it back in place. He placed the glass and the bowl on the table and threw a cautious glance around to make sure nobody was within earshot; though the fact that the place was undoubtedly heaving with listening devices made the gesture more of a theatrical one than anything else. "May I ask what particular ... business ... brings you back to us? As I recall, you and your friends left in a bit of a hurry."

"Well, I'll be honest: it wasn't entirely intentional." The smile became disarming. "I always say, it's shocking how little sense of humour some people have. I had a little _disagreement _with my business associates, which ended up with them dumping me on some godforsaken lump of a deserted planet and leaving me there."

Naz's face stretched with sympathetic horror.

So'owith picked up the bowl of viciously green alcohol and slurped from it. "Should just have shot you," he remarked. "Simpler."

"There was some argument on that point. Luckily, the side that favoured leaving me to starve to death carried the day. And luckily for _me_, a few days later along came a shuttlepod, complete with a bunch of geologists and a decent pilot." He picked up the glass and toasted his own good fortune before taking a gulp of the contents. "And so here we are. Not where I'd have chosen if I'd had a better ship, but beggars can't be choosers. And I'm sure I'll be able to hitch a ride out."

"A shuttlepod from the _Enterprise_," interjected So'owith drily. "Complete with the pilot. So we can expect a visit from them any day."

"Starfleet? Those troublemakers? _Here?_"

"Oh, don't piss on your own feet. They'll find what I'll arrange for them to find, and then they'll leave. It's as simple as that."

"The shuttlepod and the pilot, you mean."

Malcolm smiled coldly. "The shuttlepod and what's left of the pilot."

Naz's watery olive eyes looked the question: _isn't that a bit of a waste?_

"Well. What they'll think is what's left of the pilot. A bit of DNA and a few scraps of his uniform perhaps. There won't be much left of the 'pod itself when I'm through."

He took another gulp of the drink. His vision was growing slightly blurred. There wasn't nearly enough alcohol content in it to have affected him this quickly, so, concealing a faint smile, he drank again, deeply. "Three whole days on that fucking planet with not a drop of water – I'm still bloody parched. I'm going to have as many of these as I can hold. Don't worry, I c'n pay my way – I made sure I had some insurance before they dumped me."

Naz giggled. "I thought you were getting soft."

"Not in this life or the next." Malcolm sat back, swirling the liquid in the glass; his co-ordination was off, because the liquid slopped out of it. The blurriness was worsening; there was a buzzing in his ears. When he spoke again, his voice was slurred. "C'me in useful– for what I want. A pretty little girl, a special _sort _of li'l girl…. Know where to come for tha' sort'f merchandise…"

"Ahhhhh." The bar-keeper leaned closer, nodding sagely and tenderly. "Yes, indeed. You always did have a discerning palate, J'Kar."

With difficulty, the Englishman forced his eyes open. "You should know, Naz. I fucked both your sisters often enough."

As he slid into the beckoning darkness, he heard the reply as from a great distance.

"Well, maybe this time _you're _the one who'll end up fucked."

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**All reviews received with gratitude!**


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's note: I know you're all agog. So here's a little more for your delectation...**

* * *

Waking was unpleasant, but then he'd expected that it would be.

In a more theatrical world, he'd have regained consciousness loaded with chains and possibly incarcerated in some noisome dungeon with damp and the local equivalent of voracious rats. As it was, he was seated in an armchair that was comfortable enough, if not proportioned for a human body, and he was not bound in any way.

Except in that there was a bulge in the front of his trousers that didn't signify he'd chosen an odd moment to get an erection, but rather the fact that someone would really rather he didn't cause any trouble, because if he did that might oblige them to trigger some sort of small but extremely unpleasant detonation.

Careful not to make any move that might possibly be misconstrued as an intention to cause any trouble whatsoever, he ran an exploratory tongue around his mouth and then raised his head.

His vision was still a bit indistinct. He blinked, to clear it.

Kazary was seated in the armchair almost opposite him, at the far side of a small table containing the crystal flask Naz had been filling at the bar, and a PADD. The alien blinked benevolently at him and smiled – a smile that showed the Klingons weren't the only species who habitually filed their teeth into points.

The room was empty, apart from the two of them and an amount of furniture that suggested it was some kind of comfortable study. A fire burned in the hearth facing them, crackling cosily as it fed on wood that must cost a fortune to import. It was probably mostly for effect, as the room was already extremely hot.

"I do hope you're not feeling too unwell, my dear J'Kar," said his host solicitously. "Such a shame you were still so thirsty after your stranding. You did end up drinking more than was absolutely necessary."

"Yes. I thought Naz's drinks were even worse than I remembered." The contents of his stomach moved uneasily. From the taste and texture of the inside of his mouth, he'd vomited at least once, as his body tried to rid itself of the drug.

"I can imagine. But you must remember, not many of his clientele have sophisticated tastes." In the smooth face with its faint tracery of scales, the jade eyes blinked again. "Which I understand you have ... recently developed."

"Try everything once. That's always been my motto." He grinned.

The eyes examined him carefully. "Far be it from me to be shocked by my customers' preferences, my dear J'Kar. But I must say you never seemed to me to be among those likely to experiment along those particular lines."

A shrug. "I was drunk. It seemed like a good idea at the time." Once again his mind disconnected, and a part of it whispered, _What would your father think if he could hear you now? _But he spoke on fluently, with a wealth of prurient detail to add conviction, until it seemed to him that if he'd been sitting opposite himself and had a phase pistol he'd have shot the perverted bastard out of hand. The horror of this realisation was enough to bring his gorge surging back up his throat, but he swallowed it somehow and not a muscle of his face moved to betray that fact.

There was a pause, in which he had time to reflect that he'd gambled not only his own life but that of his captain on no more than a hunch, and that it was wholly possible that Keri was not, and never had been, within a dozen light-years of Farlaxi Station.

"Well." Kazary spoke thoughtfully at last. "On the assumption ... merely the assumption ... that I might have something along the lines you mention, we need to discuss your ability to pay the appropriate price."

Only the long years of experience in Starfleet's 'Department of Dirty Tricks' enabled Malcolm to smile in delight at the creature who was proposing to sell a child to a man who had spoken as he had done. Behind the smile, he rehearsed a dozen ways of separating Kazary's internal organs from his body and decorating the room with them while the owner was still alive to watch.

He nodded at the PADD. "If you didn't know I could afford her, we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"Quite." The slaver inclined his head, as one conceding the point. "Which leads us to your other ... asset. He interests me. Tell me about him."

"Tall. Strong. Not bad-looking. Co-operative enough, after a little misunderstanding at first." He'd have emphasised the point with a thrust of his pelvis, but considering what was currently attached to it, that might not be a good idea; not everybody was as meticulous as he'd always been when they were putting a bomb together. "Bright, or he wouldn't be on a ship like that. I think he'd be worth a decent amount, in the right quarters."

"Now, this is what I find really interesting," Kazary purred. "A man serving on a Starfleet ship. A pilot, you said. So ... likely to have at least some knowledge of Starfleet technology."

"Some, I suppose. He was a decent enough pilot. Though I don't think he was an officer or anything," Malcolm added regretfully. "I mean, if he was someone important you could have had a go at getting a ransom for him."

"My dear J'Kar. It's likely to cause me more than enough inconvenience having that irritating _Enterprise _arrive and ask awkward questions. As for the complications that would quite possibly ensue from any suggestion of a ransom – no, no, it's out of the question. Quite out of the question.

"However," he went on with a wave, "the issue of his value can perhaps wait until we've established whether a trade is of interest to both of us. I'm sure you're not in the habit of purchasing goods unseen."

"Not goods like this, I'm not. If I'm paying your prices I want the real deal."

Kazary looked pained. "Do I have the reputation of a man who sells counterfeit goods?"

"Not usually, I'll grant you." Malcolm grinned wolfishly. The slaver's prices were exorbitant because his goods – however ill-gotten they might be – were guaranteed to be genuine. "But I have to get moving if I'm going to be well clear of this place before _Enterprise _arrives. If she's what I want, we'll talk about prices. If she's not, I'm out of here, and the pilot can come too. There are other places I know of where he'll fetch something."

"Then it will be agreeable for both of us if you're suitably impressed." The alien rose, wrapping his voluminous furred robes around him. "Incidentally," he added, "most of the delightful little toys you brought with you have been ... put out of harm's way. Temporarily, I assure you. So you won't have any way to establish the location of my humble abode, and I'm afraid we have to make sure you don't peep when we return you to So'owith's house to think over your decision."

"If she's good enough, I won't have to think it over." A sensor pad on the wall beside a door in the corner registered the pressure of Kazary's three-fingered bony hand, and there was the sound of heavy metal wards disengaging. "Can't we just discuss the details as soon as I've seen her?"

"Please!" His host pressed a second pad, just inside the door, and lights sprang to life along a corridor some ten metres long, lined with other doors, each made of metal. Malcolm's experienced eye noted the pattern of intruder alarms, each sensor presumably linked to its own independent circuit and power source but tied up to all the others with interconnecting trips – taking one out wouldn't take the others out, but it would almost certainly set the whole damned series off. "It's very late, and I've had a most demanding day. I couldn't _think_ of doing business at this hour. And you yourself have only just arrived, my dear friend. I'm sure your ... pilot ... will be at his most presentable after a good night's sleep, and more ready to be sensible. You wouldn't wish him to make an unfairly poor impression on me, when we still have to come to some agreement about his value."

"Hardly." A shrug. "Well, it'll give me time to make the arrangements for the shuttlepod."

"Certainly. I always find that these things settle themselves, with a little care and forethought on all sides." He stopped by the fourth door on the left hand side, and pressed yet another sensor pad, bestowing on his guest a smile that was possibly meant to be fatherly. "Well, we don't encounter many Humans out in our little backwater here, so I may be misled in thinking you'll find her ... well, quite attractive. But please don't spare my feelings. If she isn't just what you're looking for, don't hesitate to say."

More metal wards disengaged.

Malcolm found that the palms of his hands were wet with sweat, and his fingers ached with the lust to kill.

Light came on inside the room.

He stepped through the door.

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	12. Chapter 12

Jon had finally managed to get some sleep, exhaustion eventually overcoming even the pain in his shoulder and the discomfort of his handcuffs.

It seemed that even when the owner was absent, the lights in the house were not turned off or even lowered (not that they could get all that much lower without failing to provide any illumination at all). Maybe this was for the benefit of some kind of security system he speculated, as he woke from tangled dreams to find the place still deserted and quiet. In a place like Farlaxi Station, it was doubtful whether there was anywhere much that wasn't under constant surveillance. On the other hand, So'owith had worn goggles to protect his eyes when he'd ventured outside. From the cold, certainly, but maybe from any excessive light too. Maybe he'd originally come from a world where his species had evolved in naturally dim conditions.

All around him the slaves were apparently sound asleep. There was nothing to be heard but the faint hush of the wind outside and the occasional grunt or whimper from one of the other beds.

He wasn't sure how long he'd slept; it didn't feel much longer than an hour, but it had refreshed him somewhat. His body was attuned to ship time, so he had little idea of whether dawn was near – if they'd come visiting on _Enterprise_, he thought with a pang, the science department would have given him and the other officers a full briefing on lunar conditions. As it was, he had no idea whether a Farlaxian day lasted eighteen hours or a couple of weeks. Sooner or later, however, dawn would break; and dreary as the moon would be, bathed in the reflected light of that sullen red star, he'd always found that the coming of a new day lifted his spirits, however crushed they'd been the day before.

Quietly and systematically he began examining his surroundings again. As soon as Malcolm and So'owith had left, earlier on, he'd automatically started to check for any avenue of escape that might offer. He therefore didn't spare his immediate environs much attention, knowing all too well that the handcuffs were completely impossible to get off and that the shackle fastening him to the bed was absolutely solid, but concentrated on the room, identifying anything that might serve him as either a weapon or an escape route if chance offered.

Suddenly the outer door opened again. The tension in his gut solidified into fear when he saw that So'owith was alone as he emerged through the fur drapes.

The alien saw him awake and staring, and with another of those strangulated laughs, loped over in his direction.

"No need to worry," he wheezed, still apparently in the grip of a paroxysm of laughter as he bent to peer into the bunk. "Your little friend couldn't hold his drink, that's all."

"He's no damned friend of mine," snapped Jon, before it occurred to him that such a response was hardly in keeping with the cowed individual he was supposed to be portraying.

So'owith, however, evidently perceived nothing amiss. "No, I don't suppose he is!"

The amusement subsided. In the poor light his large eyes were speculative. "Though he certainly mentioned how friendly you and he had been..."

Sudden nausea and hate made the fear toxic. Some of it was for Malcolm, who'd set him up for this by his bragging.

He couldn't submit. Not without a fight, no matter what it cost him. The son of a bitch would have to batter him senseless first.

The result probably wasn't in doubt; even as he backed against the wall, deciding on his opening move, he knew that this was going to end badly.

So'owith followed him in. The alien's gaze was fixed, predatory. "Don't be silly and you won't get hurt. I don't want to mark you, so don't make me have to. You might even find you enjoy it."

_Yeah, and I might end up ruling the Klingon Empire too. _

The best chance was to act too scared to resist. Just perhaps, So'owith would buy it; would be so sure that he was going to get what he wanted without a struggle that he'd drop his guard.

It was impossible to imagine that Malcolm had overindulged in drink, or that he'd willingly leave his captain alone and helpless like this. Therefore, Reed had been taken out somehow. Rescue from him was no longer a certainty – even if it ever had been.

_You're on your own._

Somehow he kept still as the alien crawled closer. He tried to make his breathing hitch as though he was terrified, though mostly all he felt as the blood drummed in his ears was the wild, powerless rage of a captured animal.

The hand touched his flank, exploring inwards.

There was so much adrenaline hammering through him he thought he'd explode if he didn't hit something in the next thirty seconds.

In the gloom of the small space, So'owith's face turned towards him. Its expression was hard for him to read, but something about the bill suggested a smile, and the large nostrils fluttered open, inhaling noisily. Maybe he found the stench of fear and helplessness in his victims arousing...

Suddenly, however, the face fairly contorted and he jerked back. It was impossible to mistake that expression – shocked loathing. He was staring at the man he'd previously intended to rape as though suddenly finding him utterly repulsive. "_S_ – _Saliva!_" he stuttered. "You – he – you let him put _saliva _on your _mouth!_"

"It's part of sexual contact in our species," said Jon quickly. "He did it every time. I expected him to. It excites both of us."

The alien glared at him. "Ziv's balls, you're absolutely disgusting! I could have – he–! – I could have caught _anything! _Don't you humans have _any _shame about such a perversion?"

"It's called 'kissing'," the captain told him, quite unnecessarily. "We do it all the time when we're mating."

It appeared that the likelihood of his being molested again had just receded past the event horizon. Even as he acknowledged that fact to himself, with sickening relief, he felt a mild pang of disappointment that it seemed he was not to have the opportunity of using one of T'Pol's more underhand martial arts moves that he'd felt hopeful of getting a result with. When she was demonstrating it in the gym on board ship she'd been careful to pull her punch short of contact, or even Phlox's skills would probably not have been enough to restore the organs in question; he, however, would have delivered it with all the strength he could get into it the moment he'd gotten the chance.

As So'owith scrambled off the bunk, hissing and cursing, Jon drew a long, shuddering breath. Now the adrenaline set him shaking, but sooner or later it would wear off and he could eventually relax, though it was unlikely he'd sleep again. On one count anyway, it seemed, he was safe.

And sooner or later, hopefully, he'd find out what had happened to Malcolm – whether he was alive or dead. And what was to happen to the both of them: whether _Enterprise_, arriving too late to save, as he was sure she would, was doomed only to find the crashed shuttlepod with two bodies in it, or whether a slower and more lingering fate awaited them both, courtesy of the slaver's block.

* * *

**All reviews received with gratitude!**


	13. Chapter 13

The light must have woken her. It came on automatically as the door opened.

She sat up quickly on the padded mattress on the floor and raised an arm to shield her dazzled eyes until they could adjust to the brightness.

Malcolm was almost shaking as he devoured his first sight of her. She was smaller and slighter than he'd expected.

He was so charged with conflicting emotions at that moment that it was all he could do to keep up the pretence of seeing her as nothing more than a prospective purchase for his personal use. He stared at her long, silky hair, lying in a blonde tangle around her shoulders – her mother had used to tie hers up with a clip and let the long strands drop across her face, except when she was on a mission of course. It had been exactly the same shade as this, so fair it was almost platinum in the sunlight.

He saw the infinitesimal tremor of fear, and then, with a swift, flashing movement that was all Pard, she dropped her arm and lifted her chin to confront whatever she had to face.

Pard's eyes, _Pard's eyes_, with the blue-sea colour of them overshadowed by storm cloud. The mouth tight with hard-held courage that was more than any eight-year-old should have to find. She was right at the beginning of fining down from her childish roundness of feature into the coltish, leggy look that would soon herald the beauty she would become. Already her cheekbones were high and aristocratic.

She said nothing, simply waited. Maybe it was because she was too afraid to speak, but the set of that chin said it was defiance. Nevertheless, she was still only a child. She recognised a visitor of her own species, and her gaze clung to him, begging him to be the miracle she needed.

His mouth was completely dry.

"Well?" said Kazary, after a decent interval to allow him to size up the merchandise. "You can strip her, if you like. I assure you, she fits your requirements _exactly._"

"I'm sure she does." Small and vulnerable and alone, still wearing the blue cotton pyjamas she must have been wearing when the transport was attacked. At least she'd been well cared for; the room was basic but warm and clean, with a tiny toilet annexe, and the makeshift bed was comfortable enough. She looked as though she'd been allowed to wash herself and clean her teeth, and her left hand still half-buried in the bedding was clutching a shabby plush toy – probably well-loved since babyhood, and the one thing she had left of the life she'd known.

He walked forward. His legs seemed to require an enormous amount of co-ordination.

He stopped just short of the bed, and squatted down beside it. He carefully refrained from touching her. "Hello, sweetheart. What's your name then?"

She surveyed him dubiously. A very few years ago she'd have hooked her finger in her mouth. "Keri," she mumbled. "Are you going to take me to my mummy and daddy?"

"We'll see what we can do," he said softly. "Are they being nice to you, these people? They haven't hurt you at all?"

The blue-grey eyes were smudged with fear and fatigue. "There was shooting. I didn't know where mummy and daddy were. And I..." her voice dropped to the whisper of one confessing a shameful secret, and wobbled pitifully. "I was scared."

"There's no need to be scared now. I just need you to be brave for a little while longer, sweetheart. I have a few things to take care of and then I'll come and take you away from here."

"And then you'll take me home? You know where mummy and daddy are? Are they safe?" Her gaze darted past him towards Kazary, and her right hand crept out and lightly touched his wrist, so that it was all he could do not to lean forward and snatch her up into his protection. "I ... I don't want you to leave," she whimpered. "Can't you take me with you now?"

"I'm afraid not, Keri. Listen. I will come back for you, I promise. Tomorrow." _I promise, I swear, living or dying I'll come for you. One way or the other, we'll go together. _"This man's going to look after you for me one more night, so I want you to be good girl and do what you're told, eh?"

Kazary snorted softly with laughter. "Start the way you mean to go on, eh, J'Kar?"

"That's the idea." Desperate to find some non-threatening topic of conversation, but not very used to dealing with children, Malcolm pointed to the toy. "Does she have a name?" he asked her.

She looked down at it. "He's a boy. He's called Mr. Button. I've had him since I was little."

"I see. Would you mind if I touched him?"

The eyes studied him doubtfully for a moment, but then she appeared to come to a decision. Slowly she drew the toy out from the blankets and held it out to him. He put his hand gently around it, keeping his grip light so she wouldn't think he was trying to snatch it from her. It was a grey rabbit, with a very inexpertly stitched waistcoat held together by one button (rather loosely attached), and an expression of idiotic complacency.

"Well, I want you and Mr. Button to behave yourselves till I come back, and I might even bring him a carrot to eat."

A ghostly glimpse of a grin. "You're being silly."

"I think most grown-ups are now and then." He released the rabbit, gave her a reassuring smile and stood up. "So it's a bargain, right?"

"Right." She echoed the grin with rather desperate bravado. He suspected that in other circumstances there would have been some demand for 'cross my heart', but even at her age she knew that this was neither the time nor the place for play-acting. She climbed back under the blanket and arranged Mr. Button carefully beside her. "I'm hungry," she said plaintively.

Malcolm chuckled. "I'm sure you can have some supper."

"Certainly, certainly!" Kazary gave a lifelike impersonation of someone who was only waiting for the word to produce a banquet on the spot. "I shall treat her like a member of my own family. She shall have some of my very own dinner. I'm expecting it shortly."

"She'll need to keep her strength up," Malcolm murmured blandly as he reached the slaver, who hadn't moved from the doorway. He turned around once and nodded to the girl, who had drawn stoicism back around her like a second blanket now she had a promise in which to place her trust. Her gaze pleaded with him not to fail her.

The door closed again. The wards locked into place automatically.

"So? I have the distinct impression you were taken with her, my dear J'Kar."

Malcolm's facial muscles pulled his lips away from his teeth. The result had all the charm and humour of a _sehlat_'s snarl. "I want her."

"Then you shall have her, my good friend. Tomorrow." Kazary guided him gently but inexorably back towards the corridor's exit. "And please, please, do your very best to be patient till then. I assure you she and all the rest of my property are _extremely _well looked after at all times. It would be _such _a waste if any ... foolishness on your part prevented our little story from having a happy ending."

The slaver wasn't nearly vulgar enough to so much as glance towards the watching cameras.

Malcolm wasn't nearly stupid enough to pretend he didn't know they were there, or exactly where they were placed.

"Well, I'm sure you're impatient to return to your friend So'owith's house and make sure nothing has happened to your little pilot in your absence," his host went on. "And I hope you'll forgive me, but it's getting very late. Otherwise I'd be delighted if you could stay a little longer and we could have a cosy chat about old times."

There was no point in being ungracious about it. He could go quietly and with relatively little discomfort, or previously-made arrangements would be put into action to ensure he went perforce, and probably with a few broken ribs as souvenirs.

Falling would be unpleasant. He sat down in the nearest armchair, without asking first.

"I knew you'd be sensible, dear J'Kar." Give Kazary his due, he had subtlety. He even kept the hypospray out of view.

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**All reviews received with gratitude!**


	14. Chapter 14

So'owith hadn't gone to bed, as Jon had more than half expected. Nor was one of the other unfortunates made the victim of his frustrations; maybe his narrow escape from contamination with saliva had temporarily crushed his libido. Instead, he'd just sat in the living area, studying the contents of a PADD with rapt concentration.

Maybe he was into romantic fiction or something. Or maybe he was accessing saliva-free pornography. As long as he was down there, the captain didn't give a damn what he was doing.

In spite of his worries Jon must have dozed a little.

A banging on the door woke him. He lifted his head to see the slaver rising without haste from the chair and moving to answer it.

There was a brief, low-voiced exchange, and two men he hadn't seen before came in, carrying something slung between them.

It was Malcolm.

They carried him to one of the other vacant bunks and placed him in it, handling him competently enough to suggest he wasn't in any particular trouble.

As they left again without a word, So'owith walked over and stared down at the lieutenant.

"Is he okay?" asked Jon.

"Perfectly. He should wake up in a few minutes. What's the matter? You want to exchange saliva with him again?"

"I _want _to get out of here." The captain hesitated. "Listen – I'm sure if you could get word to Starfleet–"

"Forget it. I've made a deal, and I'm still attached to my skin. I'd like to keep it that way." He walked away, sat down and picked up his PADD again. "When he wakes up, tell him the arrangements have been made about disposing of the shuttlepod tomorrow. I'm sure he has his own plans for transporting out."

"That was quick."

"The last thing we want is Starfleet nosing around. Don't worry, we're used to this kind of job. It'll look just like a nasty accident. And by the time they arrive, you'll be long gone anyway."

"You'll sell me _that soon?_" His horror wasn't entirely faked.

The slaver looked up, with some approximation of a nasty smile. "You may be valuable, but you're also 'hot'. Too many questions likely to be asked. They'll want you out of here." He lifted a helmet-shaped device from the far side of his chair and fitted it over his head, tilted back the armchair into a reclining position, and presumably became immersed in some form of holographic entertainment.

Jon checked the length of his shackle-chain again. It wouldn't allow him to reach the other bunk; at a guess, contact between prisoners was not encouraged, in case fights broke out and the merchandise got damaged.

There was no help for it. Once again, all he could do was wait.

* * *

Fortunately he didn't have to wait long. It was barely five minutes before the lashes lying motionless on the lieutenant's cheek suddenly flickered, and next instant Malcolm turned over with a convulsive movement and began heaving. A little stomach acid spattered the floor, but his gut was evidently already empty. He retched for a while longer, and then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked up. For some reason he also patted his groin – presumably he was checking that everything was still present and correct, for Jon saw the unmistakable flicker of relief. A little gallows humor would ordinarily have followed, but given their present supposed relationship it would hardly have been appropriate.

Reed was obviously slightly disoriented. He blinked around, and then focused on the captain. "Sorry," he said, waving vaguely at the mess on the floor. "Doesn't agree with me. Digestion, and all that."

"I'm sure our host will forgive you when he notices." Jon allowed his gaze to slide sideways, indicating where So'owith was oblivious. "Incidentally, he doesn't approve of our mating practice of exchanging saliva."

Malcolm smirked. "I know." He rubbed his hand across his mouth again, and chuckled. "Actually, I think that puts me in mind of doing it a bit more. Sort of a farewell performance, you might say. You were rather good." He sat up and felt in his pants pocket, from which he withdrew what was evidently a remote control device. "I even think we might dispense with the handcuffs for a while. You're not going anywhere, and I'm sure you know better than to try anything foolish."

The cuffs disengaged with a click. Jon shook them off, flexing his shoulders and arms as well as he could to get rid of the cramps from the change after so long of being held forcibly in the same position. It was all he could do not to groan aloud with the relief.

Still, it supposedly hadn't been done as a gesture of pity for his discomfort. He forced himself to act submissively as his lieutenant crawled into the bunk with him just as the slaver had done earlier. He didn't have to act his rigid resistance as the other man tugged a blanket over the two of them and snuggled up to him. Horror crawled in his belly as Malcolm leaned across him and his mouth delved into the angle of his neck, nipping the skin there.

_"There's a camera at the foot of each bunk, sir," _came the ghost of a whisper in his ear. _"And just for the record – I don't."_

What followed involved some loss of dignity and a lot of detaching his mind by force from what was supposedly being done to him under the blanket. Fortunately Malcolm wasn't going for any endurance awards, though the fact that his preferred technique supposedly involved a lot of neck-biting afforded quite a few opportunities for whispering information. Absurdly, Jon found himself wondering if you could put a Starfleet officer on report for giving his captain a love bite in the course of his duties.

The performance terminated with a few thankfully muted sound effects, and Malcolm rolled off him. Jon drew another great breath of relief, and relaxed with an unfeigned shudder, staring at the low ceiling formed by the bunk above him and thinking he definitely _wasn't_ 'Covert Ops' material if this was the sort of thing you had to do as a matter of course. At least he'd just had the job of lying back and thinking of Earth; it was Malcolm who'd had to put in the acting, which he'd undertaken with what his captain considered to be entirely unnecessary zest.

The important thing, however – the thing that mattered most of all – was that little Keri was here, and safe. _'I'm supposed to be completing the purchase tomorrow morning,' _Malcolm had whispered breathlessly, under cover of nipping his ear by way of variety. _'It's been straightforward enough so far, sir, but I have a bad feeling about this.'_

He wasn't the only one who 'had a bad feeling about this', Jon could have replied at the time, but presumably the exchange of saliva should have cured his misgivings, at least temporarily. In actual fact, since lying shackled to a filthy bunk while his tactical officer dry-humped him had never been among his sexual fantasies, no amount of saliva would have made the experience enjoyable, even if it would have had the qualities he'd claimed.

He could only hope that looking back on it, it would feel as surreal as it had at the time.

Malcolm had pulled his shirt open during the 'preliminaries', and the temperature of the room had dropped somewhat. Shivering with a sudden chill, as though a goose had walked over his grave, Jon refastened the buttons, pulled the blanket more closely across the two of them and turned over to face his officer.

Reed was lying on his stomach, his chest still rising and falling from his exertions. His face was turned away, as though by accident.

Under cover of the blanket, Jon found a bare forearm. Every muscle in it was rigid.

He squeezed it twice, quickly and gently. _It's okay, Malcolm. _

For long moments, the other man didn't move. Then, slowly, under the sheltering cover of the blanket, he turned his head.

Jon caught his breath. What he saw in his officer's face was something that was only there now because this last necessary act of pretense had been the last straw. What he'd mistaken for over-enthusiasm had been the half-crazed desperation of a decent man forced to act out a part he found utterly abhorrent. Shame, for just a moment, had shattered his hard-held defenses. He could no longer hide the terror, the rage and the dread of failure, even from himself.

In utter silence, Malcolm wept.

Under the cover of the blanket, Jon held his hand.

There was nothing more he could do.

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	15. Chapter 15

Dawn came at last, making itself felt as a dull crimson glow in the high windows in the far wall.

Malcolm had finally fallen asleep, the light and restless sleep that brings little refreshment. He woke feeling nauseous again. Various extremely unpleasant memories intruded into his mind, and were pushed violently into the mental compartment he'd constructed of necessity during his service with the Section; they wouldn't stay there forever, but being able to keep them under control, even temporarily, was a way to continue to function.

As Section 31 Operative 'Jaguar' he'd discovered long ago that everything had to be paid for. The reckoning would come, but later. His stomach churned as he fought the realisation of what the reckoning for this little lot was likely to be, and turning his head to the wall he forced his face into the familiar crazy grin of Jaguar high as a kite on adrenaline. He and Pard had both been adrenaline-junkies, hooked on danger, but she'd died with three bullet holes drilled through her torso, and he was left to gloat to an audience over having abused children and then simulate rape of his captain for the benefit of a watching camera. Lies, all of it, but lies that seemed to wrap themselves around his soul like tangled, suffocating fingers, holding up a mirror in which he saw a reflection so loathsome he could hardly breathe at the thought that any of it might be him. And this time there would be no accepting Pard to be his confessor, giving him absolution only possible from one who'd waded through the same slime. This time there would only be him, to face it alone.

"I think we're going to be called any minute," the captain breathed in his ear.

More food had been brought in. So'owith had apparently fallen asleep in the chair, and took revenge for his resultant physical discomforts by slapping the hapless servant around the head because the bowls from the previous evening's meal hadn't yet been collected and washed.

Several guards had come in too, and supervised the taking of the prisoners to visit the latrines situated in a room at the rear of the building. The intersecting corridor had several doors, all firmly shut, solid in construction and almost certainly locked.

Captain Archer went with the rest. Malcolm ambled along to keep an eye on his property, looking as though he hadn't a care in the world.

Toilet facilities were basic to say the least, with little semblance of privacy even for the women. Washing facilities consisted of bowls of cold water which the guards took evident pleasure in flinging over their charges. Their more honoured guest was given the use of a bowl of warm water, which was not thrown over him, but left on a low bench in a corner, with a cake of soap and a towel beside it.

As soon as he saw what was happening, Malcolm dragged the captain away from the others, saying shortly to the nearest guard that he wasn't bloody well having _his_ prisoner soaked in cold water, because they were taking him for sale soon and he'd be no damned use to anybody if he caught his death of something on the way there. Either So'owith had given orders he was to be humoured or his stare of cold authority had some effect, for they let the captain escape, and he knelt humbly on the floor beside the bench, waiting for his turn with the warm water and soap.

Glancing at him, the lieutenant knew that part of the reason for that stiffly bowed head was the captain's frustration and rage as he listened to the shrieks of the unfortunates behind him being drenched with cold water – the stinging disinfectant in it wouldn't help either. He himself had witnessed worse, and could look on relatively unmoved apart from a distant pity; he would certainly have liked to be able to offer the rest of the slaves some help to escape, but even though So'owith was a relatively minor player in Farlaxi Station's vile trade, there was a pack mentality in operation here that meant an attack on one would be regarded as an attack on all. He knew too that the station's influence extended far beyond its own star system, and that it would take a massive amount of force to clean up this particular Augean Stable – a far greater one than Starfleet would currently be willing to commit in this area, particularly in view of the fact that it was close to the fringes of the Klingon Empire and any deployment in force would attract highly suspicious attention.

Rags were provided to sop up the worst of the soaking, and the prisoners re-donned their filthy clothing and shuffled back to their bunks to begin another day of enforced tedium. At a guess, they were waiting for the next sale to be held, whenever that would be, or for a shipment elsewhere. It wouldn't be today, or they'd have been given clean clothes to make them more presentable on the block.

For himself and the captain, however, their stay here was over. Three more guards were waiting by the door, and So'owith was tucking into breakfast.

"I'd invite you to join me, of course," he said, waving some kind of eating implement, "but Kazary doesn't like being kept waiting." He cocked an eye at the captain. "Don't forget to put the restraints back on."

Malcolm shrugged, and threw a hard smile at his prisoner, who didn't meet his eyes. _Surprise._ "I don't think it's necessary. Where's he going to run to?"

"Fair point." The slaver put his hand into a bowl and withdrew it holding a large fish, which was plainly alive because it flapped madly in his grip. Then, without more ado, he thrust the wretched creature into his bill and swallowed it, though the effort to get it down his gullet necessitated several neck-stretches that gave him a more than passing resemblance to a pelican.

_"Hope it chokes the bastard," _breathed the captain.

Unfortunately, however, this was not the case. So'owith completed the operation and rose, smiling. "It's been good to see you, J'Kar. I hope I'll see you again some time."

Malcolm nodded. He knew perfectly well that what the slaver actually meant was that he hoped to see him again as part of the merchandise, but that his having struck a deal with Kazary meant that he was unfortunately sacrosanct.

At least for now.

The furred jacket had been brought back with him, and a swift check of the pockets revealed that everything in there was intact. The captain got slowly into his own jacket, the awkwardness of movement showing that his shoulder was still paining him, and stood hunch-shouldered, waiting to be told what to do.

"Right. Maybe I will be back one day, you never know. Just keep practising with those grenades, just in case. That last one was awfully slow." Malcolm flashed a cocky grin, and turned to the waiting guards. "Now, I believe I have an appointment with someone who wants to finalise an important deal."

The gale of the night before had abated. The air outside was still and bitter. Their boots crunched on the layers of frozen ice particles.

There was no necessity today for the administering of a sedative; once the deal was completed, purchaser and purchased would be departing immediately. There was constant traffic to and from Farlaxi – as well as the primary trade in sentient misery, there were other warehouse operations, and the station provided a refuelling and revictualling service for long-distance hauliers desperate enough to agree to the outrageous fees. On most days, there would be little difficulty in arranging passage on some outbound craft, provided you had the money to pay your way.

Malcolm rolled his shoulders as the five of them walked through the warren of narrow streets, one of the guards in front to lead the way and the other two several paces behind, guns at the ready. He thought of the brief transmission he'd sent out to that freighter, back on board _Enterprise_, and whether it had been passed on; and whether even if it had, there would be any response.

That Keri would be safe, and waiting for him, he never for a moment doubted. That the transaction to make her his property would go through, he didn't doubt either. Even without the additional attraction of a Starfleet crewperson and the information he might possess, the sum available in that bank account was great enough to tempt even a venal little bastard like Kazary. In an ideal world, Starfleet could simply have sent an intermediary to make the payment, and the deal would have been done; in the real world, it would have been seen as encouraging hostage-taking, and revealed that the Section had a great deal of knowledge that it kept very close to its chest. People would ask, if they knew this Farlaxi Station existed, why wasn't something _done _about it ... etcetera, etcetera. All sorts of unpleasant and uncomfortable consequences would ensue.

Better, on all counts, to deploy one dispensable ex-operative. That way, everybody could deny all knowledge, and if he pulled it off that would be wonderful, and if he didn't, well, that was really sad, but you know what the Vulcans kept telling us?

Space is _dangerous._

No, Kazary would want Keri off his hands, and the sale would go ahead. That was one hundred per cent guaranteed.

It was the part _after _that which could prove somewhat ... interesting.

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	16. Chapter 16

"My dear, dear J'Kar. I trust you both slept well."

Kazary certainly looked as though he'd enjoyed a sound sleep after supper. He fairly gleamed with health and satisfaction as his guests were ushered into his sanctum.

Jon shot him a fleeting, summing glance, without breaking from his cowed, slouching posture. Not a species _Enterprise _had ever encountered, although the somewhat reptilian look gave him a passing resemblance to a Xyrillian. Physically he was probably on the skinny side, but didn't look it, on account of the fact he was wearing so many layers of clothing he resembled nothing so much as an onion. Maybe he felt the cold, even though the room was practically at blood heat.

"I'm sure you know exactly how well So'owith treats his guests," Malcolm replied, with palpable irony.

Their host shook his head sympathetically. "He means well. I'm sure he means well." A regretful little flutter of the hands suggested that So'owith was more to be pitied than condemned for his failings as a host.

"But I'm sure you're keen to complete our little transaction," he continued, "so please. Introduce me to our new guest." His eyes traveled towards the captain.

Malcolm took hold of Jon by the undamaged arm and pushed him forward a couple of steps towards where the slaver reclined at ease in his padded armchair. "This is ... er ... do you know, I've never asked what his name is?"

Kazary shook his head reproachfully. "The first rule of profitable trading, my dear J'Kar. Know your goods." He stood up and walked slowly towards the captain, who overtopped him by more than a head. "Well, he seems like a fine specimen. Could you tell me your name, my dear sir?"

"Edwards," said Jon, producing a name at random. "Daniel Edwards."

"Hmm." The alien walked around him, examining him minutely. "And J'Kar tells me you were serving aboard a starship when he... encountered you."

"That's right." He swallowed. "I was ... I was one of the pilots."

"In-_deed._ I'd imagine that must be a very responsible role?"

"Yeah. Sort of. I suppose."

"And – to qualify for such a responsible role – you'd need a good deal of training."

"They wouldn't let just anybody fly a starship."

"No, indeed. Well, J'Kar, I believe you'll want to see that your purchase is safe and sound, and waiting eagerly to be reunited with you."

Malcolm nodded stiffly. Watching him from the corner of his eye, Jon knew that something was not proceeding according to plan; that somehow, something was wrong. When were they going to establish a price?

Kazary walked across the room and pressed a panel on the wall. A door opened, sliding sideways with a hiss.

The foremost of the four people behind it was Keri, small and still, and clutching a plush toy. Her eyes were huge in the pallor of her face, and flew immediately to Malcolm.

The three strongly-built, dark-complexioned men behind her were in black uniforms with metallic silver sashes. They carried drawn weapons, and pushed forward into the room, thrusting Keri in front of them.

"Yes, gentlemen," said Kazary happily. "May have the pleasure of introducing Captain Leq'arg, of the warship _Horth. _Captain Leq'arg, as per our arrangement, I believe this is Captain Jonathan Archer. And the gentleman beside him is Lieutenant Malcolm Reed, also of the _Enterprise._"

"What?" Malcolm snapped out, taking a step forward, so the Klingons' weapons swung to cover him. "Have you gone bloody insane or something?"

"I did mention to you, dear J'Kar – or should I call you Lieutenant Reed? – _Know your goods. _I did a little research on the _Enterprise _crew." He beamed. "Captain Archer is, I understand, an extremely skilled pilot. Furthermore, So'owith was kind enough to supply me with feed from his surveillance cameras to allow me to compare his facial features with those available on the Earth newsfeeds. And while I was about it, I found some additional footage of his officers, one of whom looked _strangely _familiar. So I do believe I won't need to complete that deal that you and I discussed after all."

Reed's mouth was now perfectly white. "The girl..."

"Part of the deal, dear boy. Humans are _so_ susceptible. Even if they're reluctant to co-operate for their own sake, why, introduce a child into the equation, and who knows what they may decide to share in order to ensure her – continuing comfort, shall we say? And considering the likeness between you, I'm sure you're pleased to know you'll still be together."

Captain Leq'arg had been studying the captain closely. "He does not resemble the man on our database," he rumbled. "Captain Archer's hair should be fairer than this man's."

"No matter," said the huge warrior on his left, unclipping a PADD from his belt. "The High Council sent me well prepared. I have the captain's DNA record. It will only take me a moment to compare the two."

"You've made a mistake," Jon said evenly, trying to control his despair. The hair dye had worked insofar as it had changed his appearance somewhat, but there was no way his DNA could be forged.

"Daniel." Malcolm's voice was so tight with strain it sounded as though his throat might shatter like glass at any moment. "I think we should just co-operate with these people."

"Let me GO!" Keri shouted suddenly. She wrenched herself free from the Klingon's grasp and flew across the room to wrap her arms around the lieutenant's body. He dropped his hands involuntarily, cradling the back of her head.

Jon glanced sideways. Reed's eyes held his, glazed with desperation.

"Sure." He shrugged, as though it didn't matter; as though all this was some silly misunderstanding that would be cleared up in a moment, leaving everyone in a sea of embarrassed apologies. Well – in view of the fact that Klingons probably didn't go in much for embarrassed apologies – in a lot of yelling and smashing things in the effort to save face.

The warrior moved forward. He produced what looked like some kind of small scanning device and clipped it to the PADD. Doubtless it would analyze his DNA in a couple of seconds and transmit it to the PADD for comparison.

Every nerve in Jonathan Archer's body screamed at him to fight or run. All that held him still was the fact that Malcolm said _we should co-operate with these people._

Malcolm Reed, whom he no longer knew whether he trusted at all.

The Klingon stopped right in front of him, invading his personal space with his brutal presence. "Your hand, Human," he growled.

Jon shrugged again, and raised his left hand.

The warrior gripped it, and brought the scanner up. Clear on the top half of the PADD's screen was the DNA 'fingerprint' that would identify once and for all that the prisoner was indeed the very same man who had escaped from Klingon justice and his punishment in the penal colony of Rura Penthe, and had evaded recapture on any number of occasions since. Underneath it, the second half was blank, undoubtedly waiting for the incoming data from the scanner.

The pressure of the Klingon's fingers was painful. Jon endured it, waiting for the huge thumb to press the command button.

In the narrow space between their bodies, there was a small, unexpected twisting movement. The scanner beeped, indicating that DNA had been analysed and transmitted successfully.

The warrior released him and stepped back, passing the PADD to his superior without a glance.

The officer took it and looked down at the damning evidence.

Across the room, Kazary smirked, already sure of his ample reward.

Half a meter away, _Enterprise_'s tactical officer stood rigid, Keri drawn protectively against him, his hands resting on her shoulders and collarbones, close to her slender, vulnerable neck. The hands that were deft on the weapons controls of his tactical station on board ship, deadly on the trigger of a phase pistol, skilled in a dozen martial arts; the hands of a desperate man prepared to do anything that might prove necessary to save his daughter from falling as a weapon into the hands of the Klingon Empire.

_Anything at all._

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	17. Chapter 17

_"Is this some kind of a jest, slaver?" _roared the Klingon captain.

Jon was gratified to see the smirk vanish from Kazary's face as though the expression had been switched off at the mains supply. "Certainly not!" There was an unmistakable note of panic, as well as bewilderment and anger, in the alien's voice. "The computer recognition programme made a positive identification! Your scanner must be malfunctioning!"

The warrior who had taken the DNA sample was plainly stunned by the development, and at this his ready rage ignited too. "You accuse a Klingon warrior of not being able to tell when a simple piece of equipment is malfunctioning?"

"Of – I – there must be some mistake!" He pointed desperately at the captain. "There was a positive identification! You must have seen the shuttlepod; it's _Enterprise_'s, and he was flying it!"

"You say a Starfleet captain would have allowed a _Qa'Hom_ like this–" the warrior gestured scornfully at Malcolm – "to put chains on him? To treat him as a slave?" He turned towards his superior. "The resemblance must be no more than a coincidence. Jonathan Archer may be many things, but he is no coward. No captain would permit such a thing! I say this man is a fool, and has taken us for fools too!"

"There may be some truth in the matter." The other warrior was staring at Malcolm too, his thin face calculating and predatory. "Even if it is not the captain, _this _one may indeed be one of his officers. There is the matter of the shuttlepod. They got it from somewhere!"

The first shrugged, scowling. "It may be that he is. What is that to us? He has committed no crime against the Empire. It is Archer I was sent to find!"

An unpleasant smile writhed under the mustache. "He will have information that will be of use to us. He may even be of use as bait. If this _Reed_ is valuable – if Archer is as soft as other Humans are – he will want him back..."

The suggestion was considered, and found to have merit. The other warrior glanced back at his captain and nodded.

Captain Leq'arg had been listening, although he too was visibly simmering with rage and disappointment. "Very well," he said. "We will take them all. Take them back to the spaceport. D'Roth, force this – _petaQ _of a pilot to man his shuttlepod, and fly it to the _Horth._ I am sure he will be open to persuasion." He glanced meaningfully at Keri, and the warriors nodded, saluting.

Jon had been listening to this discussion in apparently helpless dismay. He was still trying to fit into the picture the fact that under the cover of the proximity of their bodies, the Klingon whom his commanding officer addressed as D'Roth had turned the scanner's sensor over and pressed it into his own skin, thus providing the irrefutable evidence that the sample taken was not a match for Jonathan Archer's. Nevertheless, that act showed that D'Roth was on their side.

For the first time, he began to feel a glimmer of hope dawn in the midst of his bewilderment. He dared not so much as glance aside to share that with Malcolm, however. With his peripheral vision he could see his tactical officer standing as though carved out of ice, his hands still close to Keri Grenham's vulnerable neck. He would never allow her to be taken into captivity; but why had he said _we should co-operate with these people_? Was he simply terrified that any reckless act would endanger the child? Or was it for some other reason?

"Perhaps I should accompany them, Captain," suggested the other warrior, fingering the blade of his _mek'leth._

D'Roth sneered. "You doubtless measure the ability of others by your own, Son of Keh'resh. The guard of two unarmed Humans and a child would be a heavy burden to you."

"You speak loudly, for one only granted the honor of passage on board the _Horth_," spat the other. "Have a care, lest your tongue be a burden _I _relieve _you_ of!"

"Peace!" their captain interrupted, scowling. "K'Nav, go with them as far as the spaceport. As soon as they have the Earth craft under our control, come back to fetch me. I have certain things I wish to discuss with this heap of _baktag_, who has summoned a Bird of Prey on a fool's errand!"

From the slightly green tinge that darkened on Kazary's face at these words, it was plain that the discussion was not going to be a pleasant one. Far from exponentially increasing his profit, the slaver had bought himself a whole heap of extremely serious trouble. Jon thought with grim humor and not a shred of sympathy that even trying the usual tactic of bribery to extricate himself from the situation might actually only make matters worse. Attempting to bribe a Klingon officer on top of failing to deliver on a promised extremely significant coup would just about put the lid on things. _Better pack all your warm clothes, Mister, _thought the captain, remembering the bitter cold of the dilithium mines on Rura Penthe. _I have a feeling you're going to need them._

To be sure, on Farlaxi the slave-trader was obviously an extremely important figure. Even off it, his influence could probably be very far-reaching. But the chances of anyone riding to his rescue if he'd run foul of the Klingon Empire were virtually non-existent; they'd be far more likely to keep their heads extremely low, hoping for the sake of their own skins that their dangerous, bad-tempered neighbors would be content with punishing the miscreant himself.

The survival of Farlaxi itself might hang in the balance. The Klingons certainly had the strength to clean the place out, and wouldn't hesitate to do so if they were so minded. Everything would depend on how far Leq'arg was willing to push his grievance, and he didn't look like someone who made a habit of forgiving and forgetting.

"What are you waiting for? Move!" D'Roth pushed him roughly towards the door. "And you, bring that woman-child!"

Two leveled disruptors suggested that argument was not a good idea.

For one moment of rending horror, Jon thought Malcolm was going to crack. At the last second, however, he turned, with a queer abrupt action that pitched Keri off-balance, though he steadied her quickly and gently. Glancing at him, the captain saw his face was a white mask with black holes in it for eyes.

"Steady, lass."

As they walked through the door, the child clung to him as she stumbled alongside. "Are we going away now?" she whispered, her voice thin with fear.

"Yes, sweetheart. Very soon. I'll take care of you. There's no need to be scared." His arm rested protectively around her shoulder. "You trust me, don't you?"

She nodded, her head pressed firmly against his ribs.

They reached the door to the outside world, and Jon moved to take off his jacket – Keri was still wearing only her pajamas, no thought evidently having been given to how she would fare in the bitter cold on the way to the shuttlepod. Once she was no longer his property, Kazary wouldn't have cared a rat's ass if she'd died of hypothermia.

Malcolm shook his head. "Mine's warmer." He took it off and wrapped it around her. The shirt he was wearing underneath it was hardly going to protect him, but the set of his mouth forbade any argument.

They opened the door, and the freezing air slapped them. It was perhaps just as well that the monorail to the spaceport was only the matter of a hundred yards away, and that a car was waiting for them on it.

The three Humans were ordered to get into the cargo area in the back. D'Roth operated the controls, and K'Nav sat with his leveled disruptor in his hand, covering the prisoners.

Keri, placed between the two Starfleet officers for best protection and warmth, presently tried to take her coat off. "You're cold! I can feel you shivering!" she told Malcolm indignantly, when he stilled her hand on the buttons. "I don't want you to die! I have to look after you!"

Jon hid a smile. _Like father, like daughter. _

The lieutenant shook his head. He probably didn't say anything because it would have been a dead giveaway that his teeth were chattering.

"He will be warm enough soon," gibed K'Nav. "They tell me Humans are weaklings, have no endurance! What do you say, Star-fleet _bIHnuch_? Are you afraid yet? You soon will be!"

"It is a mighty warrior who taunts a man unable to strike back!" growled his companion.

Some exchange followed that was evidently so foul the UT hadn't been programmed with most of it, but before the quarrel could escalate to blows, the car arrived at the spaceport.

The shuttlepod was where they'd left it, untouched. Seeing Jon hesitate, K'Nav leveled his disruptor at Keri.

They had no choice. Jon keyed in the access code.

"Tie the officer and the girl at the back," said D'Roth, tossing him the coil of cord that had been fastened at his belt. "I will make sure the pilot tries no tricks."

With a snarl, the warrior turned towards Malcolm and Keri.

And next moment, he pitched unconscious to the deck after his companion delivered a smashing blow to the back of his head with the blade of his left hand.

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	18. Chapter 18

Jon halted, staring. "What the–?"

"I suggest you start up the engine, Captain," said the Klingon, in perfect, though heavily accented, English. "And Lieutenant Reed, I'd appreciate your help making our friend here secure."

The perfect rigidity of Malcolm's face had relaxed into a rare grin of relief and delight. "B-bit out of your w-way, aren't you?" he said, stuttering a little with cold. He picked up the cord as D'Roth pulled a roll of strong adhesive tape from one of the utility pockets of his uniform and began methodically affixing strips of it across their prisoner's mouth.

The other man grunted. "It's not the first time I've had to haul your ass out of trouble. Don't make a habit of it."

"I won't." With some difficulty they hauled the unconscious Klingon over and trussed him up. "Where do you p-plan to leave him?"

"In the car. He won't freeze to death by the time they come looking for him. A touch of frostbite won't kill him."

The captain, in the meantime, had been going quickly through the pre-flight routine. "We're ready to go."

It was the work of moments for the other two men to carry K'Nav out to the car and seal him in it. As soon as he was back inside, Malcolm dropped into the co-pilot's chair and began studying the scanner readouts, ignoring his still convulsive shivering. "N-no sign of the K-Klingon mother-ship, sir. She m-must be on the other side of the planet."

"She'll see us fast enough as soon as we come out from behind it." Jon glanced at D'Roth - or whatever the newcomer's name should rightly be. "I take it you have some idea of how a shuttlepod's supposed to outrun a Bird of Prey."

The big man grinned. "I'm informed you're an excellent pilot. You'll need to be." He dropped a hand on the captain's shoulder. "Take us up."

Keri was standing behind Malcolm's chair, her hands on his shoulders. "Are we going home?" she asked.

"Soon, sweetheart. Sit down, you'll fall if it gets bumpy."

She obeyed, but she clearly wasn't moving a step further from him than she had to; as the 'Klingon' moved aft to take the remaining seat she dropped to the deck plating behind the co-pilot's chair and knelt there, staring up at the occupant of it, her right hand tucked into his elbow. As the shuttlepod rose into the air, the lieutenant spared a moment to squeeze the hand reassuringly, though he didn't take his eyes off the scanners. "C-clearing atmosphere in ten. Wait, there's a … " He trailed off, laughing.

Jon could see the readout for himself. A freighter, occupying a very low orbit, and coming up on them fast. A little _too _fast, really.

... Come to think of it, a _lot_ too fast for comfort.

"How good a pilot are you, Captain?" asked D'Roth. "The cargo bay's empty and it's two hundred meters long. This shuttlepod's seven meters long, and you have two meters' clearance on either side through the front bay doors. If that ship's coming so fast, it means the Bird of Prey's about to come into scanner range. They can't slow down to make it easier for you."

"How good is _their _pilot?" asked the captain, making the necessary adjustments to his flight path. On their rearward camera the freighter was now visible, and closing fast.

"One of the best," said Malcolm softly.

"He'll need to be." The shuttle was now perfectly aligned with the freighter's trajectory. Jon began reducing the speed, watching the open mouth of the freighter's cargo bay grow larger on the camera screen. Soon the body of the vessel blocked out the stars, while the captain slowly cut more and more speed, allowing the freighter to delicately swallow the smaller craft. It seemed to creep forward around him, but that was only an optical illusion; and as soon as the shuttle's exhaust plume touched the rear of the cargo bay, he had to fight the controls to compensate for the changing pressure. A couple of heart-stopping moments later, he was able to bring the shuttlepod lightly to the floor of the bay, with no more than the smallest of scrapes on one wing-tip to show for one of the riskiest maneuvers he'd ever attempted since the prototype flights testing his father's engine design.

"G-good flying, sir." His tactical officer smiled at him a little diffidently.

D'Roth leaned forward and touched the comm. "Get us out of here."

"Pussy-cat back on board, what, what? Top-hole! Wilco, sir!" An execrable imitation British accent answered, and Malcolm rolled his eyes.

Jon looked sideways at him. _"'Pussy-cat'?" _he asked with a twinkle.

"You don't w-want to know, sir," said the Englishman, at his most dampening.

The deck vibrated under their feet with the familiar feel of a ship going to warp.

"What if they come after us?" demanded the captain.

"They won't," said their rescuer laconically. "Not for a while, anyway. When they try to break orbit, they'll find their warp drive has a problem. By the time they have it fixed, we'll have made our rendezvous with _Enterprise_ and you'll be long gone."

Malcolm sat back in the chair and laughed aloud before rising to fetch one of the emergency blankets from the aft locker. "I think the c-captain's getting a bit confused. Sir, this is Leo. He's the leader of the squad I used to work with. I sent him a m-message when all this started – told him where I'd be." With a grimace of remembrance, he wrapped the blanket around himself and sat down again, turning the internal heater up to maximum.

"It was odds-on that Kazary would find out who you were and try to sell you out to the Klingons," said Leo, starting to strip off his uniform. "_Enterprise _is too well known, even in these parts. So as soon as you went to Farlaxi we sent a coded message to the ship tasked with patrolling this edge of the border, supposedly from the High Council, telling them to pick up a warrior on a nearby system who was on top secret business and needed transport to Farlaxi. As soon as we picked up the transmission from Kazary, giving us the full picture, I went to the captain and told him that the Council had received information you were in the region, and that I'd been involved in setting up a trap for you. After that, it was just a question of waiting. And eating_ gagh_," he added on a rumble of disgust.

"And if he hadn't tried to betray us?" The lieutenant was finally starting to thaw out. It was his first sentence that wasn't punctuated by a shiver.

The big man shrugged. "I would have gone AWOL on Farlaxi. They wouldn't have been able to find me, even if they'd tried to. Their scanners would have been looking for Klingon bio-signatures." He gripped the front edge of the long mane of black hair and pulled it off, evidently with some discomfort, revealing the densely-curling wiry mat of his own scalp beneath the wig. The high, ridged prosthetic cranium came off next.

Even without them, he was a pretty awe-inspiring figure. His dark-skinned face was strongly sculpted, the eyes in it flat and unrevealing, though his expression softened a little when it rested on Keri, who was still as close to Malcolm as she could get. Indeed, at that moment, in response to a shy whisper, the lieutenant parted his blanket, allowed her to clamber on to his lap, and wrapped the blanket back to enclose both of them while she snuggled confidingly up against him, nestling her face into the side of his neck.

"Looks like she's happy enough."

"It took a risk for you to come here." The captain looked at him challengingly, wondering how much he knew. Working for the Section, probably everything.

No reply to that. He was still watching the man who'd used to be part of his team. At last, and very softly, "We loved Pard too."

Malcolm wasn't listening to either of them. His gaze was fixed unseeingly on the console, his mouth curved in a small, wondering smile.

* * *

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	19. Chapter 19

"Well, young lady, you seem to be extremely healthy. And I'm pleased to say that I can give Mister Button a clean bill of health as well." Phlox beamed at both of his visitors.

"His button's not loose anymore! Did you repair it?"

The doctor caught a look from one of the interested parties standing around the bed, and coughed, covering what he'd been going to say. "Er, well, we don't want our patients to catch cold, do we?"

"Our comm officer Ensign Sato's been in touch with your parents, Keri," said the captain quietly. "As soon as you're through here, they want to talk to you."

The girl gave a gasp of longing. "Oh – are they all right? Will I see them soon?"

"They're fine. Your Dad's still in the hospital, but he'll be okay. They just want to see for themselves that you're in one piece." He smiled. "We're headed for a rendezvous with the Vulcan ship _Sek'lar. _They've agreed to drop you off on Denobula. That's where your parents are."

"That's _my _home planet!" said Phlox cheerfully. "It's a wonderful place. I can heartily recommend it." He hadn't missed the slight look of apprehension on the child's face at the mention of traveling on the Vulcan ship, and he gestured to T'Pol, who had arrived with the captain. "This is our Vulcan first officer, T'Pol. If you have any questions or any anxieties about the _Sek'lar_, I'm sure she will be more than willing to put you in the picture."

"There is no need for any anxiety," the first officer said calmly. "Vulcans are vegetarian. They would not find the flesh of a small Human at all palatable."

Keri giggled, and the other officers present blinked.

"If you would care to come with me, I will ask Ensign Sato to arrange a comm link to your parents. And then perhaps you would like something to eat?"

That suggestion was obviously very welcome. The girl nodded vigorously – but then looked aside to where one man stood unobtrusively but steadily watching her. "Can you come with us too, Malcolm?"

"I think it would be very beneficial for her, Lieutenant," said Phlox, forestalling any reply.

Reed hesitated, but only for a second. "Captain?"

"Go on. You're not officially back on duty yet, Malcolm. Till this is over, you do what's in her best interests."

Nodding, he accompanied her in T'Pol's wake. Just before the doors closed behind them, the child's hand sought his, which clasped it comfortingly.

Now the only other person left in Sickbay, Captain Archer turned to his CMO. "Is she going to be okay, Doc?"

"Physically, yes. Mentally – she's probably still young enough to get over it quite readily, with some support and specialist counseling. And being reunited with her parents is, of course, what she needs most of all." The Denobulan waited for a moment, in case the captain had anything he wanted to mention on that score. "In the meantime, she appears to find security in the presence of Lieutenant Reed. With your permission, I'd like to ask that he be made available to keep her company until we rendezvous with the _Sek'lar._"

He watched the captain recognize the consequences of the suggestion that had naturally sprung to mind – that Malcolm accompany her to Denobula and hand her over to her parents in person.

The trauma to Keri, however severe, was temporary and treatable. The trauma to her rescuer was probably neither. For the first time in his long and sometimes difficult relationship with his most awkward patient, Phlox was seriously troubled for the lieutenant's mental well-being.

Although the captain had confided nothing to him about the missing child's parentage, as soon as Lieutenant Reed had brought her into Sickbay the doctor had been struck by the likeness between them. What he read from his scans during the course of his examination had merely confirmed his suspicions, and to go by the lieutenant's behavior he was aware, or at least believed, that the child was his. For a reserved man trying hard to appear his usual self, he'd been uncommonly demonstrative, responding to the need Keri evidently felt for his presence without hesitation. When the freighter had docked with _Enterprise _she'd been asleep, and rather than trying to wake her he'd carried her aboard, laying her down on the bio-bed as though she were made of crystal and he feared to break her. On Phlox's saying that sleep was probably the best thing for her, he'd sat beside her bed, using a borrowed needle and thread to carry out some form of emergency repairs on the plush toy the child had brought with her; and long after the repair was complete and the toy restored to her sleepy, loving grasp, he'd sat on in silence, simply looking at her.

He'd been so absorbed in apparently watching her breathe that for once he hadn't seemed to realize that he himself was under scrutiny, and revealing far more than he would probably have wished. His face was drawn and tired, his eyes darkly shadowed, and his hands clasped in his lap were too eloquent of mental distress.

It was common knowledge that he and the captain had been on a dangerous away mission. Commander Tucker in particular had been, to use the Human idiom, 'like a cat on a hot tin roof' (though why any intelligent feline should willingly remain in such an unpleasant environment was never satisfactorily explained). That in itself, however, would not explain his condition. On other occasions he'd returned in far worse shape than this, physically at any rate: once or twice only minutes from death, and certainly there had been one memorable time when he'd hovered so long on the brink that they'd feared he would never turn back. Lieutenant Reed, however, although liable to be querulous over small issues such as a stray cold virus or an upset stomach, seemed surprisingly indifferent to the prospect of his own demise. Questioned on it once, he said that it was 'in his job description', a statement that had prompted Phlox to indignantly interrogate Captain Archer as to the way Starfleet went about recruiting its security officers.

None of those occasions had ever affected him like this.

Phlox glanced sideways at the captain, who was gazing somberly at the chair his tactical officer had been occupying. "This is very difficult for Mister Reed," he said quietly, wondering exactly how much Archer knew.

The captain himself appeared extremely weary. He was still evidently suffering the after-effects from an accidental injury to his right shoulder joint, which would fortunately require only minor surgery to remove the small foreign object that had been implanted in it, though his arm would need to remain in a sling for several weeks while it healed. He moved over to the empty bio-bed and slumped rather than sat on it, the set of his shoulders betraying his exhaustion. "The whole thing was hard on him," he admitted, though he didn't expand on that statement. "Now … I don't know how he's going to get through this."

"You yourself need to get some sleep. _After _I deal with those." The doctor scowled at the marks left by the cuff bracelets around his CO's wrists. "I'd prefer to schedule surgery after you've had a chance to rest and eat. Perhaps tomorrow, if you feel well enough. It's not a complex procedure, I can do it under local anesthetic."

"I could do with a decent night's sleep," owned the other man, yawning, and he watched in silence as Phlox applied healing gel and wrapped bandages over the sore places. "As for Malcolm," he went on, when the treatment was finished, "I'm going have to play this by ear for a while. I may need your help."

"That's always here for the asking, Captain," said Phlox gravely.

"Thanks, Doc." Archer rose and walked to the door. As he reached it he paused, seeming about to speak again, but then he clearly thought better of it, shook his head, and walked out.

Now alone in his domain, the doctor sighed. For all that these days he felt a weary sense of inevitability when once again his most regular patient required treatment for yet another injury, right now he'd have given almost anything for Lieutenant Reed's newest affliction to be nothing more than a broken bone or a plasma burn.

Because nothing in all his wide medical arsenal could provide a cure for heartbreak.

* * *

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	20. Chapter 20

All too soon the _Sek'lar_ hailed them to inform them that they would be at the rendezvous point shortly, and would be grateful if their passenger could be ready to come on board as soon as possible.

With a heavy heart, Captain Archer rose from his chair on the Bridge and walked to the turbo-lift. He could quite easily have simply commed Malcolm and told him the news, or even deputed someone else to do it, but with some odd sense of it being a more suitable thing for him to do – and in person – he'd already steeled himself to deliver the blow.

For that it _would_ be a blow, and an extremely heavy one, he had no doubt. Since she'd come on board, the crew had become accustomed to seeing their tactical officer with a small, faithful shadow in tow; and doubtless more than one had seen enough to put two and two together. It had been a sight to bring a smile to many faces, even if this had to be tactfully concealed: the stiff British officer patiently and gamely accommodating an eight-year-old with a lively sense of humor – and one, moreover, who hadn't the slightest idea that the man whom she cheerfully subjected to a series of practical jokes was the terror of his subordinates. Not that he spoiled her – such a thing wasn't in him – but over the last couple of days his crewmates had seen the kinder, gentler and far more tolerant side he usually kept so well hidden that many hadn't even suspected it was there.

That Keri's departure would be an end to the matter, the captain doubted. Although the freighter that had brought the away team home to _Enterprise _had slipped away with almost no ceremony afterwards, T'Pol had informed him privately that it had continued to shadow them at a considerable distance – almost as though it was waiting for something. His first impulse had been to have Hoshi hail them, but second and wiser thoughts prevailed. It was unlikely in the extreme that there was any danger to _Enterprise_, and maybe when Keri was safely aboard the _Sek'lar_ and on her way back to her parents they'd regard their duty as done.

Maybe.

He found Malcolm and Keri in the galley. They'd evidently had a busy morning; an out-of-the-way work area boasted a couple of dozen cup-cakes. Under Chef's tolerant eye, the child was teaching her father how to turn these into butterfly cakes, and seemed critical of his apparent inability to cut the wings symmetrically.

"You really are silly, Malcolm," she said crossly. "I can do it better than you and I'm only eight!"

"I dare say it's because you've had more practice," the lieutenant excused himself humbly. "I'm afraid I haven't done this sort of thing before."

"It's your first time? _Really?_" She uncrossed her arms and moderated the severity of her expression. "Well in that case, I'll let you off. But you have to practice. Chef won't mind if you ask him nicely."

Chef waved a gracious assent. "_Bien sûr, mam'zelle. _The good lieutenant may practice cake decorating whenever he wishes." By the twinkle he sent in the captain's direction, he suspected that he was unlikely to be called on to tolerate that particular trespasser in his domain on all that regular a basis.

Jon forced a smile in return. Then he stepped forward and brought himself into Malcolm's line of sight.

Formality swept down across Reed's face like an ax blade. He straightened up. "Sir."

"We've received a call from the _Sek'lar_," said the captain quietly. "They'll be with us in about three hours. They'd appreciate it if Keri could be packed and ready to go when they arrive."

If he hadn't known his tactical officer so well, he might have missed the infinitesimal signs as the blow went home. A casual observer would have seen only the obedient nod, heard only the calm acknowledgement of the order. Externally, Malcolm was a professional Starfleet officer receiving a command he must have anticipated would come soon.

It was Keri whose face crumpled, who clutched at the gray sleeve of the man beside her and wailed, "No, I don't want to go so soon, you're my _friend_… Can't you come with me?"

"I'm afraid not, lass." His voice was regretful, but measured. "This is where I live, where I work. I can't just leave, however much I might want to."

"You left to rescue me," she argued.

"That was special. You were in danger. Now you're not in danger any more, you're going with the Vulcans who'll look after you, and you're going to your Mummy and Daddy who love you very much." A single muscle jumped in his cheek.

"But I want them to meet you. I want to tell them everything you did. They'll want to be your friends too." She looked pleadingly at the captain. "Sir, can you tell Malcolm he can go? Just this once?"

"I'm sorry, Keri. Malcolm is right. We have a lot of work to do." He kept his voice gentle but grave, his face that of authority. "If I were you, I'd finish making those cakes. You should have enough time to get them all done before you have to start getting ready."

Her eyes were bright with unshed tears, but she lifted her chin in a gesture that was all her father's. "Yes, sir."

Looking at them side by side, Jon wanted to howl like a dog.

* * *

Trip was in Main Engineering when the _Sek'lar _dropped out of warp at the agreed co-ordinates, and knew immediately when his own ship did the same in readiness for docking.

With a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, he descended from the control platform.

At almost the same moment, T'Pol entered the room.

"I have the captain's permission to excuse you from your duties, Commander," she said quietly. "I believe you will be needed elsewhere."

He didn't pretend to be ignorant of what she meant, though he was startled and touched that it was something she'd taken it upon herself to organize.

"Plannin' on joinin' us officially?" he asked, nodding at the neatly-folded bundle of regulation blue Starfleet cloth tucked under her arm.

"This is for Keri," she answered, a glance acknowledging his desperate attempt at humor. "She asked if I could obtain a copy of the _Enterprise _uniform to fit her. In the circumstances, the captain agreed."

The sinking feeling grew heavier.

The quartermaster had cheerfully put together several sets of clothes in Keri's size for her to wear around the ship, since of course she'd had nothing when she arrived but what she'd stood up in. It was probably quite against regulations for anyone who wasn't ship's personnel to be given a uniform, but then Jon had been known to waive the rules on occasion. Usually, when this happened, a certain Lieutenant could be guaranteed to disapprove.

Trip wondered how he'd feel on this particular occasion.

"I need you to divert Mister Reed's attention for a moment to give me an opportunity to pass it to her," the Vulcan went on. "I believe she wishes to surprise him by wearing it."

_She'll do that all right, _Trip thought glumly. He was faintly surprised that the captain had agreed to the request, but the child had been through a traumatic experience; maybe Jon felt that anything that made her feel good should be considered as contributing to the healing process. Externally, she seemed to have borne up well, but she was a mite 'clingier' than most eight-year-olds Trip had ever encountered. That said, most of those eight-year-olds since his school days had been members of the Tucker clan, and Tuckers rarely ran to 'clingy.'

Fortunately, there was something he could use as a diversionary tactic. Nothing vitally important right now, but an issue that he'd normally have wanted Malcolm's opinion on, since it could have a bearing on power flow to the Armory in certain circumstances. He'd intended to save it for when Keri had gone, as something that would help to buckle his friend back into his duties, but at least he could mention the matter, maybe draw the tactical officer away to look at the schematic so his back was turned for a moment.

"I believe they are in his quarters," T'Pol continued. "They were in the gymnasium earlier this morning. I believe that Keri has made remarkable strides in self-defense."

_Quid pro quo_, obviously_: _you teach me baking, I teach you self-defense. Trip almost laughed, then didn't.

They reached Malcolm's cabin. T'Pol touched the chime. "May we have a moment, Lieutenant?"

The door hissed open.

Keri had been doing her packing, such as it was. A Starfleet carryall sat open on the immaculately-tidy bunk, her spare clothes neatly folded inside it while Mr. Buttons was perched complacently on top. She looked up at the two officers, and seeing T'Pol's conspiratorial glance came forward at once.

Malcolm appeared to have been 'supervising' the packing, unless of course his daughter had inherited his compulsive neatness. Trip mentioned the power issue and asked if he'd take a moment to look at the problem.

Ever obedient, even when off duty, the lieutenant agreed. They went to his computer terminal and pulled up the schematic. Malcolm looked dutifully at the screen and said he'd give the matter due consideration.

Maybe he even saw what he was looking at, though personally Trip doubted it.

When they turned around again, Keri had disappeared into the bathroom.

"The captain will meet us at the port docking station, Lieutenant," said T'Pol. "I imagine it will only take a few moments for Mister Mayweather to bring us up to the _Sek'lar._"

"We're nearly ready, Sub-commander. – Hey, half-pint! I'm sure they have bathrooms on a Vulcan ship too!"

"Just a minute, Malcolm!" Her voice was muffled and anxious. At a guess, she was pulling the undershirt over her head.

There was a pause. Normally, in a situation like this, the Brit would have been glancing at the alarm clock on his desk every couple of seconds. Now he just stood staring at the bathroom door as though wishing it would never open.

But after a few minutes, it did, and Keri was framed in the doorway, a straight-backed miniature Starfleet crewman with maroon piping on her shoulders under the tumble of bright hair, and her eyes huge with the need for his approval.

Trip didn't look at him. He couldn't.

"I want to be an Armory officer when I grow up," she said, when the silence had gone on too long.

"I'm sure you'll be a fine one, lass," answered Malcolm at last. "But all Armoury officers have to do what they're told, and right now we have to get you aboard the _Sek'lar._"

She must have seen something in his face that wasn't in his voice, for suddenly, released from her stillness, she flew across the room to him and flung her arms around him, burying her face in his chest. His arms clamped around her in return, and for long moments they stood motionless, while Trip studied the schematic on the computer screen and T'Pol contemplated the comm panel on the wall as though finding it fascinating.

As though in response to her silent regard, the unit suddenly chirped. "Archer to Reed."

"Reed here, sir." He achieved it somehow.

"Ah, as soon as it's convenient, Lieutenant, can you bring our VIP along. I'd imagine her mom and dad are sort of anxious to have her back."

"We'll be along in a minute, Cap'n." Trip answered, because he wasn't sure Malcolm could.

Father and daughter separated as though by mutual consent.

Keri picked up Mr. Buttons. "Here," she said a little gruffly, proffering it. "I want you to keep him. He'll look after you for me. I know you do silly things sometimes. Trip told me."

Malcolm's hand closed on the toy. "In that case, as you're going to be an Armoury officer, you'll need to study your subject before you go to the Academy. You might find this comes in handy." From his small library, he took down his well-thumbed, precious copy of _British Naval Battles. _"It's old history, but I've always found it interesting."

"I'll look after it for you," she said, and put it carefully into the carryall on top of her clothes, along with the outfit she'd just taken off. "I think we'd better go. We don't want to keep the captain waiting." She looked up at him. "Where will you keep Mr. Buttons?"

Silently he placed the rabbit in the corner of his bunk beside his pillow.

She looked at the placement critically for a moment and then nodded. "When I miss him, I'll think of him there with you." Her small hand found his larger one. "Let's go."

The walk to the docking port was pitifully short. It seemed that nobody had anything to say, though Trip found himself occasionally obliged to clear something out of his eyes.

The ships were already linked and the airlock open. Two Vulcan personnel were waiting beside the captain, one young man and a slightly older woman. Their expressions were calm but friendly, though they showed mild surprise at Keri being in uniform.

"We are here to welcome you aboard the _Sek'lar_, Miss Grenham," said the woman, articulating the unfamiliar surname carefully. "We hope you will be comfortable with us. We should reach Denobula in just over two days."

"Thank you," replied Keri, seeming somewhat subdued by their formality – although having spoken to T'Pol over the past couple of days, she was less intimidated than she would otherwise have been. "Please may I have just one more minute to say goodbye?"

The Vulcans always approved of good manners. "Certainly."

The child's gaze swept around the assembled officers. "Thank you for everything. And thank you, Captain, for helping Malcolm rescue me."

They all murmured the appropriate response.

The worst was, as always, saved for last.

Her small slender figure was very straight in the blue coverall. "I will be an Armory officer one day, Malcolm. And…" Her voice wobbled in spite of all her efforts to control it. "...And I hope I'll always be as brave and kind as you are. Goodbye."

"I know you will, lass. Goodbye," he said softly.

She stepped through the door of the airlock with the Vulcans. The door hissed shut. On the control panel beside them, the lights cycled and settled.

The faintest jar through the ship's superstructure said that the _Sek'lar _had disengaged. Up on the Bridge, Travis would be maneuvering _Enterprise _carefully out of the way, bringing her to her own new heading, ready to resume her voyage of exploration.

* * *

**All reviews received with gratitude!**


	21. Chapter 21

"I'll be reporting for duty tomorrow morning, sir. Please ensure you record the period since our return to the ship as deductible against my leave allowance, and thank you for allowing me to take it when it was needed."

Jon tried to catch his tactical officer's gaze. It was turned towards him as the man spoke, but he didn't flatter himself that it was actually focused on him.

Maybe it was watching a Vulcan _D'Kyr-_class cruiser vanishing among the distant stars.

"I think you need a little while longer, Malcolm," he said gently. "I want you to get a good night's sleep and then go down to Sickbay. I've ordered Phlox to give you a full evaluation before you return to duty."

The gray gaze returned to him slowly, as empty as a husk. "I'm perfectly able to take up my duties, sir. There's no need for me to trouble Doctor Phlox."

"That's my decision to make, Lieutenant. Report to Sickbay as ordered, and until I receive Phlox's report, consider yourself suspended as temporarily unfit."

Once upon a time it would have mattered; once upon a time he'd have cared. Now, looking into his tactical officer's almost blank expression, the captain had the eeriest feeling that nothing at all would ever truly matter to Malcolm Reed, ever again.

"Yes, sir," he said listlessly. "May I have permission to return to my quarters now?"

"I want you to catch something to eat tonight. And if you think you may have trouble sleeping, get something to help you."

"Sir." It was an acknowledgement of the order, no more. Maybe he'd eat, maybe he wouldn't; maybe he'd sleep, maybe he wouldn't. Maybe he wouldn't give a damn either way.

"Granted." Wearily Jon watched him walk away, wishing for some kind of a magic wand he could wave to put everything right. That was one of the burdens of captaincy, he'd found: the inability to disconnect from his crew's troubles. But if anyone could possibly get into the armored fortress that was Malcolm now, he was damned if he knew who it could be.

After all that had happened between them on Farlaxi Station, it sure as hell wouldn't be Jonathan Archer.

Relations between him and his tactical officer had always been … 'careful' at best. Now, with so much of Malcolm's past torn open to view, a revelation that had undoubtedly been utterly traumatic to the deeply reserved Englishman, the chances were that he'd reflexively close up worse than any clam, wanting his wounds left alone.

"Guess I'd better get back to Engineerin' for a while," said Trip at last.

The captain nodded. He feared even Trip wouldn't get through to Malcolm while the Brit was in this mood.

Trip's despondency was visible as he walked in the opposite direction. At a guess, he wasn't giving up though; sometimes it just took him a while to get himself all worked up to act, but once he was moving you didn't get in his way.

Now only T'Pol was left. She watched him seriously.

"Sometimes I think you Vulcans had the right idea about emotions," he sighed.

"We _feel _emotions, Captain. We simply do not allow emotions to rule us, for if they did they would overwhelm us." She looked in the direction Malcolm had taken. "I wonder if it would benefit Lieutenant Reed if I tried to teach him some meditation techniques?"

"Maybe later, T'Pol." He was touched by her understated sensitivity, but the Vulcan detachment from emotions often left them stumbling in the effort to understand them in Humans. "Right now, I think he just needs to be on his own for a while."

She inclined her head. "If you believe I may be of assistance, I would be glad to help. I believe that this episode has been deeply traumatic for him."

"You got that right." He paused. "When you left the Bridge, was that freighter still shadowing us?"

"Yes. Do you wish us to increase our speed and attempt to lose them?"

"No. Not yet," he said slowly. "I don't know why they're still here, but I don't think they're any threat to us." With a glance around to make sure nobody was in earshot, he lowered his voice and continued. "They work for Section 31. Malcolm used to work with them, and called them for back-up when we went to Farlaxi. Just as well he did, or we'd have been halfway to Q'onos by now."

As an ex-member of the V'Shar, she would undoubtedly be familiar with the existence of the Section, and the episode where Malcolm's involvement with it had been revealed would certainly not have escaped her memory.

A slight frown creased her brow. "Then why are they still waiting?"

He said nothing, but stared back at her.

Somewhere deep in his soul, he was beginning to be afraid that he knew.

* * *

Trip worked late that night, trying to iron out the problem with the power supply to the Armory – or at least, if he couldn't work it out completely, to try to reduce it into its component parts, so that when he and Malcolm finally put their heads together they'd stand a decent chance of being to work something out that would be satisfactory to both of them.

Well. Satisfactory in that the Brit wouldn't grouse for more than a day over not having enough power for his department to do its work properly, and that the warp engine would be able to cope with the additional load without effort. Malcolm's indignation was far less dangerous than strain to the engine, in that when he finally gave up and shut up the net result was peace, as opposed to the sort of silence that means 'we're not going anywhere for a while and you'd better pray you have the spares you're going to need to put this right.'

He was so absorbed in his work that he missed dinner – a fairly frequent occurrence, and one which he only noticed when the growling of his empty stomach distracted him from the schematics.

A glance at his chronometer told him that the best he could hope for was supper. He sighed, switched off his PADDs and his desk computer, and walked out through Main Engineering, garnering the usual reproachful stares of the Beta Shift crewmen who knew he should have been out of here hours ago.

A short shower and change later, he was in the Mess Hall. As it was in the middle of a shift, he had it pretty well to himself; luckily, there was enough in the chiller cabinet to ensure his growling stomach would be quieted. He helped himself to a cheese salad. Coffee – probably not the best idea if he wanted to sleep anytime soon; maybe a dessert?

There were a couple of slices of pie in the cabinet, plus one portion of pineapple cobbler that sat untouched all on its own. Everyone who'd visited the mess had left it, but the person for whom it had been universally intended simply hadn't turned up.

But more telling still than the untouched dessert, a plate of cup-cakes sat on the top of the cabinet. It was plain that some had been taken, but enough remained for some of the remaining crew to have one when their turn came to eat.

Chef rarely had the time to indulge in such small treats; with eighty-three crew to cater for, he was more accustomed to catering in volume. The time required to cut and ice each small cake would have been too great – besides which, the somewhat haphazard look of the little confections suggested that they were very much the work of an amateur. Trip had done his share of helping out with home baking in the Tucker kitchen in his youth, and knew at a glance the way that some cases hadn't been quite filled enough while others had overflowed on to the cake trays.

_Sonofabitch._

His mind painted the picture of the fair head and the dark one bent over the cake cases, solemnly cutting the tops in half and placing them on the icing to make butterflies. But superimposed on it was another pair of heads, his and Lizzie's, because in the Tucker family it was Lizzie's privilege to decorate the pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving; when she was little he'd helped her out with carefully transferring the delicate pastry leaf-shapes from the floury table to the baking tray on the blade of a spatula, because she wasn't grown up enough yet to hold them steady all by herself. Even later, it had been a little annual joke between them; the whole family had made a point of being home for Thanksgiving, and at some point he'd ask _Need a hand with that decoratin', Pumpkin? _And she'd say _Need a hand with that engine, Trip?_

Just when you think you finally have your grief all sorted out and dealt with, life has this wonderful little trick of finding another way to break it open again. He hadn't thought of the Thanksgiving pie ritual in years.

When the Xindi had attacked Earth, he'd lost Lizzie. He'd lost the kid sister who'd mattered to him the most of all his siblings, and for a while he'd lost himself too, drowned in an ocean of grief and rage for which the only imaginable cure was vengeance.

Jon had been too burdened with the terrible responsibility of his mission to find the weapon to be able to take on the task of trying to help with personal issues. With the survival of an entire planet resting on his shoulders, he'd become an automaton, driven only by the will to succeed at any cost to himself or others.

That had left only one man, already crippled by his own emotional isolation, to plunge his hand under the waves, trying to offer a drowning man something to hold on to.

And Trip had spurned him – thrown his awkward kindness back in his face, publicly, with all the viciousness of which he was capable. Yelled at him for all to hear, and walked away, leaving him humiliated and hurt, suffocating the small inner voice of decency that said Malcolm hadn't deserved that.

Well, Malcolm's home hadn't been destroyed, had it? England was just the same as it always had been, and the Brits had gotten away scot-free. What did Malcolm know about his agony?

They'd flown down together earlier, stood on the brink of that unimaginable gash in the earth and stared out across the charred, stinking chasm where the town had used to be. 'Millions of people' wasn't real to Malcolm, was just a number his brain couldn't compute, whereas for Trip it was so immediate his heart couldn't cope with it. And just a couple of hours later, he'd turned on the friend who'd stood beside him in front of that obscenity and lacerated him, because he didn't know when to mind his own goddamn business.

Now, his appetite suddenly gone, he turned away with no dessert and went and sat down at one of the tables. He forked the salad slowly into his mouth, staring at nothing.

He didn't know much about this mission they'd just completed. The captain had told him and T'Pol that he'd had orders to help Malcolm retrieve a kidnap victim, which was a ways out of their usual duties, but normally he'd have expected this to be something the tactical officer threw himself into like some kind of planning exercise, deploying his well-trained team in support. Nothing had worked out that way. Malcolm and Jon had left the ship, alone, and when in the frustrated search for clues Trip had used his command override code to enter the Brit's cabin he'd found a sealed envelope laid neatly on his desk, marked _If appropriate. _

In an electronic age, an envelope. The writing on it was neat and careful, giving away nothing.

It hadn't been 'appropriate' yet, so he'd left it there, albeit with something of an effort. He'd gone away and barked at Anna, who'd barked right back at him and saved him a piece of pie later that evening when once again he'd been late for dinner and it seemed likely all the desserts would be eaten before he got there. Damn, he hated it when his people understood him so well.

Abruptly he stood up.

Malcolm hadn't known when to mind his own business. Or maybe he had, but figured that friendship was more important than discretion. It had cost him; he hadn't made the mistake twice; but he'd still been there, waiting silently to be needed – the 'friend that sticketh closer than a brother.'

So maybe the details were vague. But one thing was crystal damned clear.

If there ever was a time when Malcolm Reed needed help, then that time was _now._

And he was going to get some.

Whether he liked it or not.

* * *

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	22. Chapter 22

There was no answer to the chime.

Trip stood motionless outside Malcolm's cabin and cursed beneath his breath.

The Brit could be anywhere on the ship, though he'd checked out the gymnasium as he passed, just in case – it would be a healthy sign if Malcolm was expending some of his emotions on the punch-bag.

The gym, however, was empty.

If needs be, Trip could track him down using the computer. That would be the simplest option, and yet somehow it didn't feel right; it would be an insult to the man's dignity that unearthing him in person would not.

_Enterprise _was a very big ship when it came to affording places for a determined man to lose himself in.

But the lieutenant had requested permission of the captain to return to his quarters. And Malcolm was very literally-minded. If all else failed, he'd obey orders.

'Permission granted' was a sort of order, wasn't it?

Not without a sense of trepidation, Trip entered his override code. Breaking and entering the tactical officer's quarters was getting to be a habit with him these days, it seemed.

The room within was in darkness.

He touched the light control.

Somehow it wasn't a surprise that Malcolm was sitting at the desk. Arms folded, staring blindly at the blank screen where the _Enterprise _logo should be glowing if he'd switched it on.

Trip felt as though he was in the room with an armed device that would take just one wrong touch to detonate. Just his luck that it happened to be the ship's explosives expert in person. Under that silent exterior there could be any number of booby traps and tripwires, all waiting for the one unwary word that would set off the explosion.

There wasn't a lot of Malcolm Reed, in terms of bulk. But what there was of him was _dangerous. _

As though he felt that the deck plating itself might be mined, Trip walked carefully to the bunk and sat down on it.

Without speaking, he studied Malcolm's face.

The lieutenant didn't turn, or speak, or give any indication that he knew or even cared that he was under scrutiny. He simply stared at the screen. His face looked different. Drawn, and cruel, and bitter. The other Malcolm, the quiet, reserved, decent man who'd carved out a place for himself aboard _Enterprise_, was simply

… gone.

He should have been prepared for it; he should be able to understand. Hadn't he looked in a mirror and seen just such a transformation in himself, after the Xindi attack?

But this was _Malcolm. _Malcolm, who'd been the still and steady core of the storm when Jon lost his soul and Trip lost his self and T'Pol, well, T'Pol had gone through _something_, for all that it hadn't been Vulcan that was scarred forever by the probe's vicious path. For all that Trip had irrationally hated and blamed him for his apparent lack of feeling in the face of such suffering, it had enabled him to hold his course, to be the lodestar of right conduct in a world where such a thing had ceased to be all-important.

So what had happened out there during those few missing days? What had he done, or had done to him?

Well, there was Keri of course. Being possessed of a pair of eyes that functioned perfectly well, Trip had made the connection within seconds of setting eyes on the two of them together. It hadn't taken him three more minutes to deduce that Malcolm knew and Keri didn't, and that was how things were going to stay.

So yeah, that was going to be difficult.

This was a subject that was evidently going to have to be handled with the most extreme care. He suspected that the girl's existence had been unknown to her father; otherwise surely one of the first of those letters dictated on board Shuttlepod One would have been for her, perhaps to be given to her if and when she began to ask about her parentage. That was enough to have knocked the Brit's controls askew in itself, suddenly finding out he was a daddy. And on top of that, and whatever had happened during the mission, no sooner had he found her than he'd lost her again.

A grief that Trip was in the best of all positions to understand.

So – however risky the attempt might be, and Trip was under no illusions as to his own competency as a bomb-disposal expert – that might be the way to start the conversation.

"You should be really proud of her," he said gently.

A muscle twitch in the rigid jaw was the only response.

"'Chip off the old block,' isn't that what you Brits say?"

The head turned, at that. It was like watching a phase cannon swivel on its mounting.

"Sir." The voice was flat, and cold, and deadly. "You have ten seconds to get out of my quarters."

"Or what, Lieutenant?" Trip rose to his feet, and held the unblinking cobra-stare with his own. "Or you'll wipe the floor with me? We both know you could, so what will that prove?"

"Oh, no. I won't stop at wiping the floor with you. I'll quite probably kill you."

"You could try."

"There's no 'try' about it, Commander." He rose, or perhaps 'uncoiled' would be a better description, and stood, swaying lightly, poised on the balls of his feet. "I do believe you've used up those ten seconds I mentioned. Now, are you going to leave, or do I kill you?"

"Be my guest. I could use a little less responsibility."

Far back in the gray stare, something flickered.

Trip waited.

"Go. For the love of – just _go_, will you?" Malcolm's voice shot up and cracked. _"Get out of here!"_

"Not till you've talked," said Trip steadily.

Reed moved at that. So quickly that the eye hardly had time to follow it, he swung sideways. His fists crashed into the computer screen, drew back and crashed again, and came out glossy with blood from a dozen cuts he didn't even seem to feel.

_"Malcolm!"_

His head snapped around again. His expression was almost fiendishly gleeful. "I had you all fooled, didn't I, _Commandah? _Stiff-necked prick of an upper-class Brit, that's what you all thought. You didn't see me before, you didn't see what I was. Because I wouldn't have got a sniff at _Enterprise _then, oh no, but I was fucking good all the same, that's why they wanted me. No yes-sirs and no-sirs, just _this is the target, make sure they're all dead, _and nobody gave a shit about how much blood there was on my hands, and Starfleet doesn't want to know any of it, just _keep it out of sight, out of mind!"_

He closed the distance between them, his steps rapid, his voice rising. "She, she was gorgeous, too good for me, but we used to fuck after a mission, she liked it hard – sometimes she'd be in gagging for it even before I'd got out of the shower so I had her in there. I still see her sometimes, she sits on top of me and there's three lovely little bullet holes straight through her, not that that slows her down…" He threw back his head and gave a splintering laugh. "She went away in '48, a special assignment they said. And eight fucking years later I find out – she had my child, _my child, _and gave her away, what sort of arsehole did she think I was, not to even tell me, and now I find out, and I've even lost what I thought she was, and now you all know, don't you, you ask the captain, he could tell you, and I sat down there in that fucking place and talked about having little girls, and hell, didn't I sell it well, they were practically _…" _ He drew a frantic, hiccupping breath. There was sweat on his face, but the words went on spilling out of him like blood from a burst artery. "The bastard knew I'd do it, he knew what it'd cost, but she was mine, _mine, mine and Pard's_, all these years and I didn't know it, and she calls someone else 'Dad', forty-eight cakes and a fucking rabbit!"

His hands were gripping his upper arms as though he had to hold something or lose control of them; blood was welling out of them and darkening the dark blue tracksuit top. His eyes were tearless, terrifying. "They called me Jaguar back then, after the car, that's when they weren't calling me the mad little fucker who blew things up – makes sense I suppose, who'd want something like that for a father? She should have just got rid of it as soon as she found out, not Keri, not Keri, _not my Keri_, _not mine, my daughter, my little girl, forty-eight cakes and a FUCKING RABBIT!"_

It was clear to Trip in that moment that Malcolm was teetering on the edge of mental collapse. It was simply appalling to watch this normally deeply self-contained man lose it so totally and utterly, to hear the pain and horror and grief spilling out of him, beyond any attempt at control.

He knew that something should be done, anything to snap the atrocious tension that had Malcolm's mind and body quivering like a bowstring ready to snap. Almost as importantly, Phlox should be summoned, to deal with the bright crimson that had begun dripping on to the floor in a steady stream of soft splats; but to do that he had to step away from Malcolm, and if he did that there was no saying what the man would do,

If this had been common or garden hysteria, he'd have gone for a good smart slap. As it was, you didn't slap a weapons officer with a nasty line in a dozen or so martial arts and a heck of a reason to be pissed off with you, considering you just invaded his cabin and made him spill a whole load of things he'd wanted to keep the lid on.

So he punched.

It was a success, insofar as that Malcolm was completely unprepared for it, and that it caught him on the side of the jaw and hurled him backwards. What Trip hadn't been counting on – for he never expected to catch the tactical officer so unawares – was that the force of it slammed his head into the wall, and the next moment he was lying in a heap on the floor, completely out for the count.

* * *

Phlox was the first on the scene, followed by T'Pol and the Captain. The doctor waxed critical of Commander Tucker's counseling techniques, but said that Mister Reed should suffer no more than a mild concussion at worst. Some of the damage to his hands, however, would require stitching immediately.

Between the three of them they got Malcolm gently on to the bunk. Forewarned, Phlox had brought a suturing kit, and began dealing with the worst of the cuts.

While the Denobulan worked, Trip filled in the details for his two superior officers. It was difficult to convey anything like the full horror of what had happened, but he did his best. His own hands were shaking, and when he'd gone over as much as he could remember he cast a look of as much fear as pity at the officer still lying senseless on the bed. "Cap'n, I – I've never seen him like that before. Maybe – maybe I did the wrong thing, makin' him talk–"

"On the contrary," Phlox interrupted. "However unpleasant it was, and I have no doubt it was _extremely _unpleasant, such an outburst invariably acts as a safety-valve. You quite probably prevented some kind of even more violent reaction later on. As for your method of terminating the episode, well – you're both alive and more or less intact. In the circumstances, the outcome justifies the means."

"He threatened to kill you?" asked the captain, his face drawn and grim.

"He threatened it, but he didn't follow up." Trip gestured at the shattered computer screen. "Lookin' at that, I'm kinda glad he didn't."

"Captain." T'Pol spoke quietly. "It's clear that Lieutenant Reed is completely unfit for duty. I suggest that the only appropriate course of action is to arrange for him to be transferred off the ship and returned to Earth, where he can receive whatever course of treatment is required."

"So he can be locked up and pawed over by some bunch of _strangers?_" the chief engineer retorted. "If he didn't want to talk to _me_, what the hell makes you think he'll want to talk to people he doesn't even know – people who'll treat him like he's some kind of freak?"

"On the contrary, Commander. He may well find it easier to open up to people before whom he does not feel obliged to keep up what you might term 'a front'. And I would hardly imagine that Starfleet medical personnel would treat a valuable officer as a 'freak,' whatever their opinion of his mental condition." She turned back to Captain Archer. "In his present state, the lieutenant is a danger to himself and to the ship. This may well be through no fault whatsoever of his own, but it remains the truth. He needs help – help that, with all due respect to Doctor Phlox, we may have neither the expertise nor the time to give him."

Trip watched the captain direct a long, troubled stare at Malcolm. "Doc? Do you agree?"

Phlox was now busy wrapping temporary dressings around his patient's hands, but at this he paused briefly. "With regret, Captain, I do wonder if it might be for the best. I can't feel that this ship is an ideal environment for Mister Reed to begin a recovery – for one thing, knowing him as I do, his feeling under constant observation would merely exacerbate his emotional stress. For another –" he smiled sadly – "I'd imagine he would be far more interested in resuming his duties than in taking sufficient care of his own wellbeing. If he was no longer on board ship, that would not be a factor that could weigh with him."

After another long, long pause, Archer sighed heavily. Then instead of stepping to the comm link and giving the beta-shift comm officer the order to arrange a rendezvous with any ship that could transport the sick man home to Earth, he turned to T'Pol and gave her a look that seemed almost that of a man accepting fate. "I guess now we know why that freighter's been hanging around."

"What freighter?" demanded Trip. "You mean that one that brought you back to us? I thought they just left…"

"They have been following us at a distance," the Vulcan told him. "It seems that they anticipated we might experience difficulties."

_Sonofabitch. _This seemed so wrong, so utterly wrong, that a man as ferociously self-contained as Malcolm Reed should be lying there having others dispose of him and his future, as though he was no more entitled to a say in it than a sick dog on a vet's table.

"So who are these people? Are you plannin' on … just handin' him over to them and leavin' him to it?"

"Right now, Trip, I'm not 'planning' on _anything._" A couple of corpsmen were waiting outside the door with the gurney, and Phlox directed them to transfer his patient onto it. The tactical officer was beginning to come around; he groaned softly as they moved him, and his eyelashes fluttered. "I'm going to hear what these people have to say, I'm going to talk to Malcolm, I'm going to talk to Starfleet and then I'm going to make a decision."

It wasn't the answer Trip had hoped to hear, but he supposed that right now it was about the best Jon could come up with.

He stepped to the side of the gurney. The man on it was definitely regaining consciousness. Pain sank a groove like a knife blade between the straight brows, and the lids beneath them lifted to reveal dazed eyes.

"What…?"

"Take it easy," soothed his friend. "It's gonna be okay, Malcolm. We'll look after you."

He watched memory return, and with it grief and shame. The eyes shut again, and Malcolm turned his head away. The light pressure of a comforting hand on his arm brought no reaction.

The Brit had broken, and for himself he had never had any forgiveness at all.

* * *

**All reviews received with gratitude!**


	23. Chapter 23

Jon was looking out of the window when the door hissed open.

"Your visitor, Captain," said T'Pol. She ushered the huge man into the room and left, leaving an Armory ensign on guard duty outside.

For a moment longer he went on staring out at the motionless stars. They didn't even gleam on the dark hull of the freighter currently attached to _Enterprise_'s docking port. It reflected nothing at all; the ship didn't even display a name, only a series of numbers in accordance with trade regulations.

He was willing to bet that if he put this into the computer in the search for information, it would either come up with _classified _or with some load of baloney that wouldn't stand five minutes' investigation. At a guess, Travis was giving the craft the interested eye; the young boomer-born helmsman had been off duty last time the two ships had docked, but he'd be awake now, and it didn't take much imagination to suppose that Trip would recruit his expertise to learn all that could be learned about the new arrival.

It was the Section's ship. It belonged to a part of the organization that seemed to regard itself as beyond any accountability, whose representative had dragged Malcolm back into a past he'd tried so hard to leave behind; and though in the circumstances there was no doubt whatsoever that Reed would count his peace well lost for love, it was still lost. Maybe – abhorrent as the thought was – lost for good.

Had Harris foreseen this? Was this some second plan behind the first, to get back the services of an operative they'd never wanted to lose? Even so badly damaged, Malcolm could still be useful. He could still kill. Maybe now he wouldn't even care about that either.

There was no movement in the room behind him, even when he deliberately let the pause drag out, the only expression he could find of his impotence and anger.

Finally, however, he swung around.

Flat, emotionless black eyes met his. Leo stood just inside the door, as completely at ease as though he was standing on his own flight deck.

"You called me, Captain." The voice was as deep as he remembered. It betrayed neither curiosity nor concern. It simply stated the fact.

"Yes." He should say _thank you for coming_, or some other commonplace civility. He was being churlish, and he couldn't help it.

Silence. The other man knew why he was being a boor and was indifferent to both the omission and to his reason for it.

"Why have you been following us?" Jon demanded at last, his voice an open challenge.

"Why have you asked me to come on board?" Leo responded evenly.

The question only stoked his helpless ire further. He walked to the table and rested his fists on it. "I think you already know the answer to that."

"I have some idea. The rest of it is up to you, Captain."

Jon stared at him. He might as well have been staring at a cliff-face. The carved black visage gave back nothing, not even the echo of his hostility. Finally, "You knew it was going to happen, didn't you?"

"I guessed," the deep voice said. "I saw the way he was acting, and I guessed."

"And you stayed because…?"

"Because, Captain Archer, you aren't the only commanding officer who cares about his crew." Leo glanced out of the window, towards his own ship. "He learned his trade aboard _my _ship, he was one of _my _crew. I knew someday he'd leave, I knew someday he'd figure out that life wasn't what he wanted; hell, I knew it a long time before he did. But that didn't make losing him any easier. Just because we work on the wrong side of the rules doesn't mean we don't care for our own."

"He's not one of 'your own' anymore. He signed on as an officer in _my _crew, on _my _ship, under _my _command!"

"Captain." Something close to compassion tinged the other man's tone. "You and your crew have achieved extraordinary things. You've earned your place in the history books. But not even you and the people who work with you and follow you can always do everything."

Jon's head drooped. He'd had to learn that ugly truth afresh with every eulogy, and he'd written too many. And yet it still wasn't real. Not when it was one of his crew, one of his senior officers, one of his … hell, maybe still one of his 'friends', whatever Malcolm felt on that score; a man whom he saw every day on the Bridge, whom he trusted to keep his ship safe – yes, _trusted_, in spite of everything.

He hadn't had time, yet, to process everything that had happened over the course of the mission. As the ship's captain, he rarely had free time in which to reflect on events – even those which demanded a rethink of some very important matters, not least of which was the recognition that his own blind arrogance in insisting on being a part of the mission had so nearly ensured it ended in disaster. But over the past couple of days he'd found that he was beginning to understand his tactical officer just a little better; to have had a glimpse into his past was to comprehend far better why he kept such walls around himself, and why his protectiveness of the ship sometimes carried in it a tinge almost of obsession. He didn't have to wonder what dangers were 'out there' … he'd _been _'out there.'

"He won't talk," he said almost inaudibly. "I'm running out of options. I want to do what's best for him. Maybe a Starfleet medical center … people properly trained to treat mental trauma…"

Leo's lip curled. "People who don't understand him. People who've only read the books. People who've never been _out here_. People who want to cure him instead of letting him cure himself."

"So what makes you think you can do better? With no training at all?"

"We can let him be himself." The answer was so soft it was barely audible. "We can let him curse if he wants to, and cry if he needs to. Without having to keep up a front. Without having to be ashamed. He's hurting, Captain. He's hurting so much I'm frankly surprised he hasn't spaced himself already. You and your ship must mean a very great deal to him."

The unexpected admission stiffened Jon's wavering resolve. For right or wrong, he felt suddenly that he and Section 31 were locked in a battle for Malcolm Reed's soul; that if once he let him be taken away, he might never get him back – never get to make his peace with a complex man who had risked so much so often to protect his comrades and serve his ship.

Maybe it was a ploy. Maybe if once they got their hands on him, that would be it. Maybe even if he wanted to return to his duty on board _Enterprise_, they'd find ways to stop him. Where the Section were concerned, who could say?

Jon stared across at the Section's enigmatic team leader, who was so opaque to him but seemed to feel some kind of compassion for the man he'd used to command. Useless to ask if this was indeed some scheme of Harris's. He knew already there would be no reply.

Nevertheless, in spite of all his anger, his fears and suspicions, he knew too that it was only fair that Malcolm be given the choice. A cruel kindness to inflict on a sick man: to follow the old loyalty or the new… but they had, indeed, run out of options. There was no healing for Malcolm Reed aboard _Enterprise._

And this time, the question would be answered once and for all.

_Who do you answer to now, Malcolm?_

* * *

They encountered Travis, just leaving Sickbay.

"You all right?" said Jon, the informality recognizing that his junior officer was off duty.

The helmsman appeared slightly embarrassed. "Fine, sir. I was … I was just checking up on Lieutenant Reed." He glanced, slightly awe-struck, at Leo's massive frame. "I've … I've just been bringing him up to speed on what's been happening round the place. And sort of – keeping him company."

The captain nodded. "I'm sure he appreciates that."

Travis grinned. "I hope so, sir, but you know Malcolm." He departed, doubtless in search of dinner.

Phlox was preparing a set of hypospray cartridges when they went in. His usual dauntless smile was somewhat dimmed when he recognized the visitor. Yes, he said, Mister Reed was awake, and there was no reason why they shouldn't speak to him, but he was very tired. It would be best to cause him as little disturbance as possible, so that he could get to sleep soon.

Conscious of the doctor's steady blue gaze on his back, Jon led the way to the one occupied bed, currently protected by drawn privacy screens.

"Malcolm?" he called. "Mind if we come in for a minute?"

"Sir." The English voice was dull and listless.

Taking that as permission, he pushed through the screens.

The tactical officer was sitting propped half-upright on pillows, his bandaged hands resting on the blanket covering him. An IV line trailed from a cannula on one of them, leading to a drip set up beside the bed.

For one who was ordinarily so incurably restless, it seemed strange to see him without even a single PADD to hand. It seemed that he'd simply been lying there silently waiting to sleep, perhaps exhausted by Travis's chatter – if, indeed he'd heard a word of it.

As Leo pushed through in his wake, the captain observed Malcolm narrowly. He'd have heard the exchange with Phlox, so he'd know who one of his visitors was. It was unlikely in the extreme that he'd be expecting the other, and his reaction in this unprepared state could be extremely revealing.

Either the Section's training died hard, in spite of everything, or he was too exhausted to care. There was no perceptible change to the pale, weary face; he simply noted their presence and waited to see what more was to be asked of him.

"Malcolm, I'm sorry to have to lay this on you." After an infinitesimal pause in which Jon realized that he had no idea what he could possibly say to soften the facts, he went straight to the point. "I think you'll agree, as things stand you're not fit for duty."

No response. He simply lay there and accepted the statement as though he didn't give a damn either way.

"But we have a problem," Jon pursued. "One of the ship's officers is lost."

That got a reaction. The blank eyes sharpened, and cut to him. His free hand moved to the cannula as though intending to remove it. "Sir–"

"It's going to be a tough mission to get them back," the captain went on. "So I want the best person available for the job."

He watched Malcolm's mind tally up the possible casualties, fearfully selecting the likeliest, and then trawl through the possible candidates for a rescuer, rejecting them all as not up to the task. One of his charges was missing, maybe in grave danger; someone, perhaps, from his own team, and the knowledge had been kept from him!

"Sir," he said again. "We have to start searching as soon as possible. If you can give me all the information you have–"

"That's what I was hoping you'd say," admitted Jon. "I think you're the ideal person for this job. Actually, I wouldn't entrust it to anyone else."

Adrenaline was kicking in now. _I turn my back on this bloody ship for five minutes, and they go and lose somebody. _If it hadn't been so desperately serious it would have been funny.

The suspense was too much to bear. "So who have we lost, Captain?"

A pause.

"My tactical officer."

Malcolm became very still.

"This gentleman here," Jon indicated Leo with a gesture, "believes he has the best chance of recovering him if you tag along for a while. And I think he may be right. At any rate, I want to take that chance. Because my missing officer was a hell of an asset to the ship and a hell of a good friend. And I want him back."

The gray eyes fastened on him as though trying to tear out the truth by force.

"And what if … what if we don't find him, sir? What if …"

"I think you will," said the captain gently. "And when you do, it'll be good to have him back."

The man in the bed was silent for a long moment. "An officer who deserts his ship isn't an asset," he whispered at last, bitterly. "He's a _traitor._"

"He is if he left it on purpose. If he couldn't help it – if he was just human – then in my book that's a different matter. I'm guessing he's just forgotten for a while that _Enterprise _is still his home, and we're still his family. Maybe you could remind him, when you see him."

A small, slow nod. "Maybe I could."

"We've got a little job to do not far from here," Leo's deep voice intervened for the first time. "Something that calls for an explosives expert. I was thinking he might be checking the place out."

"It sounds like his sort of thing." For the first time, a shadowy hope flickered into life on the drained face opposite him. He met the captain's gaze a little diffidently. "I – I don't think it will take me that long to find him, sir."

"I'm counting on that, Malcolm."

* * *

Jon shook Malcolm's hand and stepped back. "Good luck. We'll be waiting for you to call us."

"Thank you, sir. I will. And – be careful with _Enterprise _in the meantime."

A smile. "I'll do my best. If you need us, you know where we'll be."

Malcolm nodded, and bent to pick up his carryall, disregarding how painful it must be with his injured hand. Leo walked through the airlock, and he followed him. In the hatch of the other ship, he stopped and looked back. Leo put a hand on his shoulder, and he too looked back. The dark gaze met Jon's squarely. _I'll look after him for you._

Trip's fingers were clumsy on the command panel, but eventually the outer and inner hatches closed. The light sequence said that undocking was complete. Nobody wanted to look at the scanner and know the exact second when the freighter went to warp and was gone.

"You think we've done the right thing, lettin' him go?" asked Tucker at last.

"I think we've done the _only _thing." Jon sighed. "I talked it over with Admiral Gardner last night – he wasn't surprised. I think he'd already heard from Harris's people. They were going to send us a temporary replacement, but I said we could handle it ourselves. As far as Starfleet are concerned, Malcolm will be regarded as 'on special assignment'. It's the same as if he was signed off sick, and they don't even have to pay for the treatment," he added bitterly. "It keeps the bean-counters happy."

"I have every confidence in the lieutenant," T'Pol said quietly. "He said to me once that 'defeat doesn't lie in being knocked down; it lies in not getting up again.' And, sooner or later, I know he will get up again."

"I'll drink to that." The chief engineer looked around at both of them. "I've got a few beers in my chiller. T'Pol, I can fix you a mint tea or somethin'. How about a drink before we turn in?"

They nodded, and the three of them began walking towards Trip's cabin.

"I do not think tea would be a suitable medium with which to drink a toast," said T'Pol suddenly. "In the circumstances, I will accept a beer if you have one to spare."

"Sure." He was obviously startled, both by her perspicacity and by her offer to drink alcohol.

Jon grinned faintly. He wondered if she ever realized how much she'd changed since she came on board; or how much richer she'd made their lives.

They reached Trip's quarters and went in. The contrast between its desk and notice-board, crowded and cheerful with letters and photographs from home, and those in Malcolm's quarters, which had boasted nothing more than a lithograph of HMS_ Victory _and a copy of the latest crew roster, was painful.

Jon sat on the bunk. T'Pol sat on the chair by the desk, looking curiously at a photograph in a frame: Trip, fast asleep on a front porch swing, with an infant Tucker equally asleep in the curve of his arm. He was wearing a T-shirt that said THEY BREAK IT, I MEND IT.

Maybe that was true for Malcolm's old team too.

Trip returned with three opened bottles. T'Pol took hers a little doubtfully. At a guess, Vulcans didn't drink straight out of bottles.

"Just for once," said Jon softly.

Trip sat beside him. T'Pol leaned forward a little. There was a tiny pause, while they all thought their own thoughts and wondered what toast would be appropriate.

Finally, Trip lifted his bottle slightly.

"To 'gettin' up again.'"

**The End...**

**at least for now! :)**

* * *

**All reviews received with gratitude!**


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